Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang tells employees not to ‘live for KPIs’ in speech after being named Jack Ma’s successor

In his first internal management strategy speech since being named Jack Ma's successor, Alibaba Group Holding chief executive Daniel Zhang Yong reminded managers in the company that key performance indicators should never be the sole reason to do something.

“If we live for KPIs, and do something just for the sake of KPIs, then Alibaba is finished,” Zhang said last month at an internal meeting for its organisation department, a group of about 500 high-level executives and leaders in the company.

Zhang's remarks follow the announcement earlier last month by Alibaba co-founder and executive chairman Ma that he would hand the reins to Zhang in a year's time to focus on philanthropic efforts. While Ma is known to be a visionary and a charismatic orator, Zhang is more reserved and is seen by many to be a steady and reliable choice to lead Alibaba in the future.

Since it was founded in 1999, the company has gone from a scrappy start-up with 18 co-founders working out of Ma's apartment in Hangzhou, to Asia's most valuable company with a market cap of US$427 billion, making Ma China's wealthiest person.

Ma has stated that he hopes Alibaba will last “at least 102 years” with the mission to “make it easy to do business anywhere”, and has put into place a partnership structure to help ensure the continuity of the company and to prevent important decisions being made by only a handful of executives.

Zhang, together with chief technology officer Jeff Zhang Jianfeng and Ant Financial Services chief executive Eric Jing, are three of the 36 Alibaba partners, executives who have the exclusive right to nominate a simple majority of Alibaba’s board of directors.