Alibaba Group names new Lazada CEO

By

Benjamin Fitzgerald

Published
Jun 7, 2022

Southeast Asian e-commerce giant Lazada has appointed James Dong as its new group CEO, effective immediately. Dong replaces Chun Li, who has helmed the company since July 2020.

The Alibaba Group-owned company selected Dong, who previously CEO of Lazada Thailand and Vietnam.

In addition to this new appointment, he will continue to be chief executive of Lazada Thailand and take over the Indonesia CEO position from Li. With the reshuffle, Kaya Qin has also been named the new CEO of Lazada Vietnam. She joined Lazada in June 2018 as the chief operating officer of Lazada Vietnam, according to news reports.

Dong joined Lazada in June 2018. Prior to that, Dong held several roles at Alibaba, including serving as business assistant to group CEO Daniel Zhang. While at Alibaba, Dong helmed the Chinese e-commerce giant's globalisation strategy and portfolio management, which included Lazada’s integration into Alibaba, the latter acquiring the former in 2016 with an initial investment of $1 billion.

Dong is the fifth executive to take to the top spot at Lazada in the last five years. Since original founder Maximilian Bittner left in 2018, Lazada’s group CEOs have included Lucy Peng, Pierre Poignant, and Li, who took on the role in 2020.

In May, Lazada got another $378 million boost in funding from Alibaba, according to filings with Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority.