Low-profile exec sits on Alibaba's CEO chair

he 43 year-old Alibaba executive has been named as chief executive, succeeding billionaire company founder Jack Ma, who is resigning to make way for younger leaders.

Ma and several partners launched the company from his apartment in Hangzhou in 1999. He will continue to set Alibaba's strategic direction and develop future leaders, but hand over his responsibilities as chief executive to Lu by May 10.

Lu joined Alibaba in 2000 and is the only senior company executive to have headed all of its major divisions.

Alibaba's company blog describes him as an operations whiz who shuns the spotlight.

His ability to execute will be tested immediately. In January, the company said it was splitting operations into 25 divisions to become more flexible.

Lu led the development of online payments service Alipay. Later, as chief executive of Tabao, the dominant e-commerce site in China, he oversaw an eight-fold increase in value of goods traded on the platform.


/CNN/