After Ma Yun and Huang Zheng retired from the e-commerce industry, one was committed to education and environmental protection, and the other devoted themselves to research in the field of food and life sciences. Today, another e-commerce tycoon has taken a back seat and focused on the long-term strategy of the enterprise. On April 7, Liu Qiangdong handed over the POSITION of CEO to Xu Lei, president of JD.com.
Xu Lei joined JD.com thanks to the matchmaking of Xu Xin, the "queen of venture capital". When Xu Xin "asked for milk bread" in the group, Xu Lei further consolidated Liu Qiangdong's position as "successor". In the past 13 years, how has he gradually moved to the top level of JD.com?
Why Xu Lei?
After experiencing the hard work of the "creation generation", many entrepreneurs are facing the problem of finding a "successor". Judging from past experience, some enterprises have a smooth inheritance and the company's performance has created brilliant achievements; some have taken a sharp turn for the worse due to improper employment of personnel.
For Liu Qiangdong, who single-handedly founded the JD Group, the work of choosing a "successor" has also been ongoing. Previously, there were at least three "successors" in JD.com: Xu Lei, who was in charge of retail, Chen Shengqiang, who was in charge of mathematics, and Wang Zhenhui, who was in charge of logistics.
With the departure of Chen Shengqiang and Wang Zhenhui, Xu Lei eventually took the throne. On April 7, JD Group issued an announcement that President Xu Lei was appointed CEO of the group, responsible for daily operation management, and reported to Liu Qiangdong, chairman of the board of directors. This means that Xu Lei finally "took over the baton" after 214 days as president.
For why Xu Lei was chosen, Jingdong's explanation is mainly for three reasons:
First, Xu Lei, who has been employed for 13 years, is a talent cultivated by JD.com itself; second, Xu Lei has established a business philosophy of "trust-based, customer-centric value creation" for JD.com; in fact, since he became president, he has sorted out JD.com's development ideas to ensure high-quality growth.
In the view of toutiao, Xu Lei's final "ascension" benefits from many factors such as time, place, and people, but the biggest reliance is on two points: one is performance, the other is personality.
In terms of performance, Jingdong Retail, which was single-handedly planned by Xu Lei, has become an important source of profit for Jingdong Group. According to the financial report just released, in 2021, JD.com achieved revenue of 951.6 billion yuan, an increase of 27.6% year-on-year, and JD retail contributed 866.3 billion yuan of revenue, accounting for 91%.
In terms of personality, Xu Lei has two major characteristics that are quite liked by Liu Qiangdong. One is to follow the rules. According to reports, Xu Lei has a bohemian personality, but he is very disciplined. Even Liu Qiangdong has publicly stated that if he wants to drink, he must find Xu Lei, "because he is the most disciplined." One is love to think. Returning to Jingdong for the second time, Xu Lei almost "stood aside". However, he took advantage of this empty window period to think seriously and put forward the idea of adjusting the organizational structure of JD.com. Four years later, Liu Qiangdong handed over the task of organizational structure adjustment to his hands.
For Xu Lei, Liu Qiangdong had a comment that year: Jingdong is the most effective person. Nowadays, Xu Lei, who understands the rules and loves to think, has become the helmsman of the big ship of Jingdong, and whether he can still be worthy of Liu Qiangdong's comments needs to be solid performance.
Where does the big guy retire?
Before Liu Qiangdong, the founders of the other two major e-commerce companies, Ma Yun and Huang Zheng, had already chosen to take a back seat. After the Internet big guy "retired", what did he do? Is it really fading out of the way? Apparently not.
In October 2019, at the celebration of Ali's 20th anniversary, Ma Yun announced his resignation as chairman of the board of directors and CEO, handing over the command of Ali's big ship to Daniel Zhang born in 1972. Although the retirement is very high-profile, Ma Yun did not "return to the hidden mountains and forests", he changed to a "jianghu" - education and environmental protection public welfare.
Perhaps watching Ma Yun toss in another jianghu a little more joyful, in 2021, Huang Zheng, who is more than 10 years younger than him, announced his resignation as chairman of Pinduoduo. The move far exceeded market expectations. On the one hand, in 2020, Huang Zheng surpassed Ma Yun and Ma Huateng to rank second in the rich list and was known as the most likely person to become China's richest man; on the other hand, Huang Zheng voluntarily gave up super voting rights and entrusted the voting rights of shares under his personal name to the board of directors.
Huang Zheng, who has retreated completely, focuses on research in the fields of food science and life sciences, and explores a new space for high-quality in-depth development for Pinduoduo in 10 years. As early as 2018, Huang Zheng had a vision for his career path: he hoped to transform into a true scientific researcher in the future.
Unlike Ma Yun and Huang Zheng, who withdrew completely, Liu Qiangdong stepped down as CEO but still served as chairman of the board. However, according to the division of work, he will devote more energy to long-term strategic design, major strategic decision-making and deployment, the cultivation of young leaders and the cause of rural revitalization.
Some commentators believe that Ma Yun, Huang Zheng and Liu Qiangdong are far from daily business, which means the end of an era. In the past decade, Ali, JD.com and Pinduoduo have ridden the east wind of the consumer Internet and shared the dividends of the era of e-commerce. Nowadays, the e-commerce giant "Creation Generation" has left the market, and a new story has begun.