(Bloomberg) — Daraz Group, the South Asian store of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. , named a new top executive, the latest in a series of leadership shakeups at the Chinese e-commerce giant.
James Dong, 44, who heads Alibaba Group SA’s Southeast Asia branch, will upgrade Daraz founder Bjarke Mikkelsen as interim chief executive with immediate effect and will oversee its operations in addition to his other duties, Daraz said in a statement. announced on Wednesday.
Mikkelsen is the latest executive to leave the once-dominant Chinese tech company, which has since been hampered by lackluster post-Covid consumption, a years-long government crackdown and the prospect of rivals adding PDD Holdings Inc. and ByteDance Ltd.
Alibaba’s overseas department has grown to become one of its fastest-growing businesses and has been exploring a conceivable IPO, but the festival is intensifying, especially in Asia.
Lazada cuts jobs as it battles Shopee of Sea Ltd. , as well as ByteDance Ltd. ‘s TikTok Shop. in Southeast Asia’s changing e-commerce landscape. TikTok Shop restarted operations in Indonesia last December after agreeing to invest $1. 5 billion in a joint venture with Indonesia. Go to the group.
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Dong will work to integrate Daraz with the corporations of Alibaba’s foreign e-commerce unit, Mikkelson said in the statement. “With this structure, we will have a more targeted strategy and a more effective business model,” he said.
Dong, a former sales assistant to former group CEO Daniel Zhang, led Alibaba’s globalization strategy and business progression before joining Lazada as head of Thailand operations in 2018, according to the company’s website. He will be CEO of Lazada in 2022.
Alibaba acquired Daraz from Rocket Internet SE in 2018 as part of a foray that now extends to Lazada in Southeast Asia and Trendyol in Turkey. The Pakistani company, which also operates in Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, eliminated 11% of its jobs in February. to cope with the slowdown in e-commerce, after the war in Ukraine and rising inflation disrupted chains of origin and economic growth.
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