Jack Ma will quit Alibaba chairmanship in 2019

Jack Ma, founder and chairman of China's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, attends a plenary session on E Commerce during the 48th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, Jan 24, 2018. [Photo/Xinhua]

Jack Ma, founder and chairman of Chinese e-commerce tycoon Alibaba, will leave his position as the company's chairman on Sept 10, 2019, according to an official announcement today. CEO Daniel Zhang Yong will take over as chairman.

Ma will stay as board member of Alibaba after Sept 10, 2019 until the company's annual general meeting of stockholders in 2020, the announcement said. Besides acting as partner of Alibaba, Ma will focus on public welfare and educational business, he said in an open letter to the public on Sept 10, a meaningful day — Ma's birthday, the founding day of Alibaba and also China's Teacher's Day.

After graduating from Hangzhou Normal University, Ma always saw himself a teacher. "Starting a business was only incidental. My biggest dream lies in the education," he said.

Ma has been preparing for this succession plan for 10 years. Alibaba created a partnership then to provide solutions for company creativity, leader succession and culture succession issues. This enables the company's healthy development by combining together the system, the people, and the culture, he said.

"We can only solve the problem of enterprise succession and development by setting up a system and forming a unique culture and cultivate talent as potential successors," Ma said in the open letter. "And we never ceased practicing to achieve this."