JD.com founder Richard Liu steps down in latest Chinese tech chief exit

The founding father of JD.com Richard Liu has stepped down as chief government of the Chinese language ecommerce group he based greater than twenty years in the past, marking the newest exit for one of many nation’s prime entrepreneurs.

Beijing’s months-long marketing campaign to rein in Massive Tech has spurred a number of Chinese language entrepreneurs to flee government roles in favour of working from behind the scenes, as personal enterprise within the nation comes beneath better regulator scrutiny.

ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming shed his formal titles final 12 months, whereas the chief government of its primary Chinese language rival, Kuaishou, additionally moved to decrease his profile.

At JD’s ecommerce rival Pinduoduo, founder Colin Huang exited all of his government roles on the firm and the pinnacle of Jack Ma’s fintech upstart Ant Group resigned.

JD promoted president Xu Lei as its new chief government. The 47-year-old had lengthy been touted as JD’s subsequent head after main its primary retail division for years and taking on each day tasks for working the corporate final September. He may even be a part of the corporate’s board, JD mentioned on Thursday.

Liu plans to remain on as chair and is JD’s controlling shareholder, holding a separate class of shares that offers him about 77 per cent of the overall voting energy of the corporate.

“JD has constructed a robust footing within the business,” Liu mentioned in a press release. “I’ll commit extra of my time to JD’s long-term methods and future drivers.”

Liu’s tenure at JD was marred by his 2018 arrest in Minnesota on allegations of sexual assault, which he denied. No costs have been introduced towards him by US prosecutors.

JD mentioned Liu would deal with technique, mentoring upcoming leaders and proceed “contributing to the revitalisation of rural areas”, in a nod to Beijing’s demand that its tycoons do extra for the nation. Liu earlier this 12 months donated $2bn value of JD shares to charity.

JD has typically carried out effectively beneath Liu’s watch with revenues up greater than 10 occasions since its Nasdaq public providing in 2014 and its inventory value rising 211 per cent. The corporate’s Hong Kong shares fell as a lot as 3.6 per cent in early buying and selling on Thursday, greater than the 1.8 per cent fall for the Hold Seng Tech index.

Liu’s formal exit as chief comes amid a Chinese language regulatory crackdown on tech that has dented the share costs of the nation’s largest web corporations and more and more led to lay-offs as progress has slowed.

JD has up to now averted the brunt of Chinese language regulators and its enterprise has held up higher than rivals comparable to Alibaba, with gross sales of Rmb952bn ($149bn) final 12 months, up 27.6 per cent from the 12 months earlier than. However the firm additionally resorted to lay-offs this spring to get prices beneath management after years of aggressive hiring.

Li Chengdong, head of the Haitun ecommerce think-tank, mentioned Liu’s exit was most likely pushed by a shared need from Chinese language executives to “get out of the general public eye and deal with larger degree firm technique”, although he anticipated Liu to be extra hands-off than the opposite entrepreneurs which have exited lately.

“Xu Lei has finished job rising JD Retail over the previous 4 years . . . so he’s the proper particular person to take the CEO position,” mentioned Li.

Xu has been at JD for greater than a decade, working as the corporate’s chief advertising officer and head of JD Wi-fi earlier than taking on the retail unit.