Jack Ma’s school for business elites drops ‘university’ from its name
- The Hupan website was also updated with the new name, while its official account on WeChat was changed from Hupan University to simply Hupan
- Although Hupan was never officially licensed as a school by the education ministry, Ma’s influence made it a magnet for the country’s would-be business leaders
An elite business school created by Jack Ma, the founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, has quietly dropped all online references to “university” in a sign that the sought-after school may be adopting a lower profile.
The official Weibo account of Hupan University, which suspended new student recruitment after Alibaba-controlled Ant Group abruptly called off a mega initial public offering in Shanghai and Hong Kong last November, changed its name to the Hupan Entrepreneurship Research Centre.
The official Hupan website was also updated with the new name, while its official account on WeChat, the social media platform run by Tencent Holdings, was changed from Hupan University to simply Hupan on Monday.
Meanwhile, a video clip of a worker erasing the Chinese characters for “university” on a stone at the Hupan campus went viral across Chinese social media platforms on Monday. Hupan means Lakeside in Chinese, a reference to its location near the West Lake in the Zhejiang provincial capital of Hangzhou, where Alibaba is based.
Hupan did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Hupan University was set up in January 2015 as a private tutoring institution for China’s top business leaders. Its nine founding members included Lenovo chairman Liu Chuanzhi, Fosun chairman Guo Guangchang, and Giant Interactive’s Shi Yuzhu.