since 2015. Joseph Tsai is Alibaba's executive vice-chairman since 2013. J. Michael Evans is Alibaba's president since 2015. The board of directors of Alibaba includes top management Jack Ma, Joseph Tsai, Daniel Zhang, and J. Michael Evans, and director Eric Jing, plus independent directors such as Chee Hwa Tung, Walter Kwauk, Börje E. Ekholm, and Wan Ling Martello, as well as Yahoo! co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang. Masayoshi Son (founder and CEO of SoftBank) formerly served on the firm's board before stepping down in 2020. Besides Ma, Tsai, Zhang, and Evans, senior management also includes Toby Xu (Chief financial officer) Judy Tong (Chief human resources officer), Jeff Zhang (Chief technology officer and President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence), Sophie Wu (Chief customer officer), Tim Steinert (General Counsel and Secretary), Jessie Zheng (Chief risk officer and CRGO/Chief Platform Governance Officer), Angel Zhao (Head of Alibaba Globalization Leadership Group), Chris Tung (Chief marketing officer), Trudy Dai (President of Wholesale Marketplaces), Fan Jiang (President of Taobao.com), and Jet Jing (President of Tmall.com). Previously, Jack Ma served as the CEO of the Alibaba Group since its creation, but later stepped down in 2013, choosing Jonathan Lu as his successor. The Alibaba Group under Lu was performing well, though there were rumors that Ma was growing distrustful in Lu's ability to lead the company. Daniel Zhang, who served as COO of Alibaba under Lu, succeeded Lu as CEO in 2015. On 10 September 2018, Ma chose Zhang to succeed him as executive chairman of the Alibaba Group after his stepping down announcement, and this would go into effect in 1 year on 10 September 2019. Since 2012, the Chinese Communist Party has had a Party Committee in place in the company and has over 2,000 party members as Alibaba employees. In 2019, the Chinese government began embedding officials inside major technology companies, including Alibaba. Alibaba has been criticized for censorship on its platforms, this includes both censorship ordered by the Chinese government and self-censorship. During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Alibaba refused to join the international calls for withdrawal from the Russian market. Research from Yale University published on August 10, 2022 identifying how companies were reacting to Russia's invasion identified Alibaba in the worst category of "Digging in", meaning Defying Demands for Exit: companies defying demands for exit/reduction of activities. Financial data See also Variable interest entity Amazon References External links Jack Ma