Ant Group gets new CEO as billionaire founder Jack Ma talks up AI in rare appearance

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, speaks during 2020 China Green Companies Summit on September 29, 2020 in Haikou, Hainan Province of China.

Liu Yang | Visual China Group | Getty Images

Ant Group president and finance chief Cyril Han will take over as chief executive officer from next year, the financial technology giant announced Sunday as it looks to reignite growth after Beijing’s crackdown on the tech sector.

Han will take over the role from Eric Jing who will remain as chairman, according to an email seen by CNBC announcing the changes. Han will report to Jing and the changes will take effect on Mar. 1, 2025.

Ant Group, which runs the massive payments app Alipay, is one of China’s biggest technology firms. The management changes were announced as part of the company’s twentieth anniversary celebrations which also featured a speech from Alibaba and Ant Group founder Jack Ma.

Ma said that his generation was lucky to seize the opportunities that the internet brought. However, the artificial-intelligence era over the next 20 years would “exceed everyone’s imagination,” Ma said, according to a transcript published by Chinese media.

It’s a rare public appearance from Ma who was impacted by the Chinese government’s regulatory tightening of the domestic tech sector. Ant Group’s public listing, which would have been record-breaking, was cancelled abruptly by Chinese authorities at the end of 2020. Since then, Ant Group has been overhauling its business to be compliant with regulators.

Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce Ma co-founded, also was the subject of Beijing’s scrutiny.

The crackdown hurt the growth of many of China’s biggest technology companies but regulators have recently softened their stance as the Chinese economy remains under pressure.