Alibaba’s Southeast Asian subsidiary Lazada appoints Li Chun as new chief executive, succeeding Poignant
- Founded in 2012, Singapore-based Lazada served over 70 million unique consumers across six markets in Southeast Asia last year
Lazada, e-commerce giant Alibaba’s Southeast Asian subsidiary, has appointed Li Chun as the group’s new chief executive, succeeding Pierre Poignant, with a remit to accelerate the company’s growth via greater localisation and helping companies make better use of their data.
Li, who has served as both president and chief executive of Lazada Indonesia over the past three years, will succeed Poignant – a founding member of Lazada – on July 1. Poignant will become a special assistant to Alibaba’s chairman and chief executive Daniel Zhang, according to a company statement on Friday.
“Chun is an experienced business leader who can realise Lazada’s vision of unifying commerce with technology to advance Southeast Asia’s digital economy,” said Lucy Peng, Lazada Group chairwoman.
Li, who has a dual bachelor’s degree in mechanics and economics law from Peking University and a master’s degree from Ohio State University, joined Alibaba in 2014 as chief technology officer for Alibaba’s business-to-business unit. He was appointed co-president of Lazada in June 2017, before becoming chief executive of Lazada Indonesia last July.
Li’s corporate bio describes him as a veteran internet executive with over 20 years experience, with expertise in technology architecture and product strategy. Before working for Alibaba and Lazada, he held executive positions at eBay and InPro Systems.
In an internal letter to staff, Li said he was “honoured to be entrusted as the next captain of our Lazada team” and thanked Poignant for his “immense contribution” over the years.