Alibaba’s Jiang Fan moves back into the limelight with mission to win hundreds of millions of new consumers overseas

Former Taobao and Tmall president reassigned to lead Alibaba’s new International Digital Commerce unit, which includes AliExpress and Lazada

Appointment is part of a major management reshuffle at Alibaba and follows an 87 per cent plunge in September quarter net income amid new business investments

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Alibaba Group Holding creates new overseas e-commerce unit led by Jiang Fan, the former president at Taobao and Tmall. Photo: AP

Published: 11:00pm, 8 Dec 2021Updated: 7:24am, 9 Dec 2021

Alibaba Group Holding has designated Jiang Fan, the retail wunderkind who fell from grace because of a public scandal, to head its overseas e-commerce operations and engage a vast market outside China to fulfil the company’s long-term goal of serving 2 billion consumers worldwide.

The new appointment forms part of the biggest management reshuffle at Hangzhou-based Alibaba and comes more than a year after Jiang, 36, was removed from the company’s elite partnership of 38 people in 2020, following an internal investigation into allegations of improper behaviour.

Jiang, who was president of domestic retail platforms Taobao Marketplace since December 2017 and Tmall since March 2019, will now lead Alibaba’s overseas consumer-facing and wholesale businesses, including cross-border retail platform AliExpress, wholesale trading platform Alibaba.com and Southeast Asian e-commerce platform Lazada Group.

“In the current macroeconomic environment, it’s hard for Taobao and Tmall to show eye-catching results,” said Arch Pei, an independent internet analyst who previously worked at Sinolink Securities. “Overseas markets are where much potential can be found, giving Jiang a chance to show his capability.”

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Annual active consumers in Alibaba’s global ecosystem reached 1.24 billion in the 12 months ended September 30, according to company data. That includes 953 million consumers in China and 285 million overseas.

The new role for Jiang, who was demoted to vice-president from senior vice-president of Alibaba in 2020 and forfeited a year’s worth of financial incentives after the internal investigation, is expected to test whether he can replicate his success in the domestic market as head of the company’s International Digital Commerce division.