HONG KONG – Alibaba Group Holding ushered through a parade of high-profile stewards over its 24-year history, from the larger-than-life Mr Jack Ma himself to a succession of C-suite executives who frequent conference and diplomatic circles.

But the man who rose to the top in last week’s abrupt management reshuffle is an enigma even to some of the Chinese e-commerce juggernaut’s longer-serving employees.

The appointment of Mr Eddie Wu Yongming to replace the affable Mr Daniel Zhang as chief executive surprised insiders, even though the 48-year-old computer scientist has been with Mr Ma from Alibaba’s humblest beginnings. Employees said they resorted to company intranet and public records to find out more about their bespectacled, serene-looking new boss.

Now the elevation of a technologist-turned-angel investor raises a plethora of questions about the direction for China’s largest e-commerce company.

Mr Wu appears to straddle two disparate worlds: He is a veteran coder who was leading a 10 billion yuan (S$1.9 billion) venture capital firm with a portfolio in bleeding-edge fields like autonomous driving and the Internet of Things (IoT) after stepping away from Alibaba’s day-to-day management.

This is important because Alibaba’s Internet supremacy has come under fire in recent years in arenas as varied as artificial intelligence, cloud services and video entertainment. Its six arms, recently restructured, are now in fund-raising and spin-off mode – classic dealmaker territory.

Investors last week struggled to parse the impact that Mr Wu could make on the US$220 billion (S$297 billion) company and the six-way restructuring. Many analysts pointed out his scientific credentials, while others focused on his ability to draw in much-needed capital. Both could be key to energising a company that has not grown by double digits since late 2021, after Beijing’s crackdown kneecapped its key businesses.

Affectionately nicknamed “Wu Ma” – or “Mother Wu” – for his ability to counsel and rally people, Mr Wu was impressed by the then young and idealistic Mr Ma, who envisioned digitalising China’s fast-growing private sector by building webpages for small business owners. In 1996, Mr Wu joined Mr Ma’s very first venture, China Yellow Pages, after stumbling across a job listing on a local newspaper, the computer science major said in a Tsinghua University interview.

Mr Wu stuck with his mentor despite a string of now-infamous rejections by bureaucrats – a loyalty that may now be coming full circle. He followed his mentor to Beijing when Mr Ma did a stint at the Commerce Ministry, and then tagged along when Mr Ma left to create Alibaba at his lakeside apartment in Hangzhou – before Mr Ma’s right-hand man Joseph Tsai (now appointed chairman) had even met the entrepreneur.

As Alibaba grew, so too did Mr Wu’s role at the e-commerce behemoth. He was the chief architect of Alibaba’s flagship products – ranging from the eBay-style Taobao marketplace to its namesake wholesale site. In 2004, he designed Alipay, the online payments service modelled on PayPal that went on to help wean China off cash. The technology grew so valuable that Mr Ma in 2011 spun it off to create the underpinnings of Ant Group.

Later, Mr Wu spearheaded the creation of Taobao’s ad platform, Alimama, which let merchants buy prominent placement and rapidly became Alibaba’s cash cow in the early years. After Alibaba debuted in New York in 2014 in what was then the world’s biggest initial public offering (IPO), he served as Mr Ma’s special assistant for four years, until the tech mogul conferred the chairmanship on Mr Zhang.

In 2020, before China kicked off its crackdown on the country’s once-freewheeling technology sector, Mr Wu was on the verge of finally hitting pay dirt. He was one of more than a dozen early employees whose shares would make them billionaires upon Ant’s debut – in Mr Wu’s case, US$1.8 billion. Then disaster struck – his boss Mr Ma in October took the stage at the Bund Forum in Shanghai and, in a now-infamous speech, blasted state banks for operating like pawn shops and regulators for behaving like old men. Market regulators killed the IPO a month later.

Like many Ant honchos, Mr Wu then largely stepped away from the limelight. In March 2021, he popped up during the listing ceremony of Vision Plus portfolio firm Tuya, which raised US$900 million in a rare debut for a Chinese tech firm during regulatory and economic turmoil. Mr Wu was one of the strongest proponents for the IoT device maker – founded, incidentally, by Alibaba alumni – and was pictured front and centre in his trademark black-framed glasses at the virtual event.

In hindsight, Mr Wu’s rise to Alibaba’s top was not without clues. In March, when Mr Zhang unfurled the restructuring and spin-offs, Mr Wu was appointed chairman of the core Taobao-Tmall marketplaces, and a director of Alibaba’s international commerce and local services divisions. Together with Mr Tsai, who is now Alibaba’s new chairman, Mr Wu will follow through on a company overhaul that could prove crucial to its long-term growth. BLOOMBERG