阿里巴巴換帥 張勇接替陸兆禧任CEO

Before Alibaba raised $25 billion in an initial public offering last year, its founder, Jack Ma, said he did not care much about share prices.

阿里巴巴去年通過首次公開募股(IPO)籌集了250億美元（約合1550億元人民幣）。在那之前，其創始人馬雲(Jack Ma)曾表示，他不是很在乎公司的股價。

On Thursday, Mr. Ma made it clear he was not too worried about shaking things up, either, replacing the company’s chief executive just days after airing concerns about efficiency.

週四，馬雲更換了公司的首席執行官。此舉向外界表明，他也不介意對公司的領導層進行重組。幾天之前，馬雲剛剛對公司效率表達了擔憂。

In the surprise leadership change, Mr. Ma picked Daniel Zhang, who has been at Alibaba for eight years, to lead one of the world’s largest Internet companies. Mr. Ma, in a letter to employees, portrayed the replacement of the chief executive, Jonathan Lu, as a sort of changing of the guard.

在這次意外的領導層變動中，馬雲任命在阿里巴巴供職八年的張勇(Daniel Zhang)擔任公司的領導者。阿里巴巴是世界最大的互聯網公司之一。在致員工的信中，馬雲把替換現任CEO陸兆禧(Jonathan Lu)描述爲“交接換班”。

”Alibaba Group is ready to completely hand over management leadership to those of you who were born in the ’70s,” Mr. Ma wrote, adding that several other experienced Alibaba leaders would give up some day-to-day control to allow younger executives to rise.

“阿里巴巴集團已經可以把領導權全面移交給70後，”馬雲寫道。他還說，另外幾名資深的阿里巴巴高管也將脫離日常管理工作，從而讓更年輕的管理人員成長。

When Mr. Ma stepped aside from the chief executive role two years ago, he emphasized that he had grown too old to run a technology company. In his letter, he said the company’s recent efforts had helped a new generation shine. More than 95 percent of the management team was born in the ’70s and ’80s, he noted.

兩年前，在馬雲卸任CEO的時候，他強調自己太老了，不適合管理一家科技公司。他在最近的這封信中表示，公司近期的行動已經幫助年輕一代脫穎而出。他指出，公司管理層中70後和80後佔了95%以上。

Mr. Zhang, who was born in 1972, has become well known among employees at Alibaba for his public speaking and charisma. Leading Alibaba’s investment call on Thursday, Mr. Zhang’s polished English underlined the divide between himself and Mr. Ma, who, though once an English teacher, speaks a more unorthodox, self-taught brand of the language. Within Alibaba, there is admiration for Mr. Zhang’s cosmopolitan management style, in part honed during stints early in his career at Arthur Andersen and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

張勇出生於1972年，他憑藉出色的公衆演講能力和個人魅力，在阿里巴巴員工中有很高的威望。週四，張勇主持了阿里巴巴的投資電話會議，他精湛的英語能力突顯了他與馬雲的區別。後者雖然曾是一名英語老師，但英語卻不太純正，帶有自學的風格。在阿里巴巴內部，不少人十分欣賞張勇國際化的管理風格，這在一定程度上要歸功於他早期在安達信會計師事務所(Arthur Andersen)和普華永道(PricewaterhouseCoopers)工作時得到的訓練。

Mr. Lu, who is only a few years older than his replacement, is scheduled to step down as chief executive on Sunday, exactly two years after he took over from Mr. Ma. At the time of his ascent, he was portrayed as a utility player who would help the ballooning start-up manage its rapid growth. Mr. Lu will remain on the board.

陸兆禧只比張勇大幾歲，他卸任CEO的時間定在週日，正好是在他接替馬雲擔任該職位的兩年之後。升任CEO時，他被描述爲一位多面手，將幫助這家蒸蒸日上的創業公司管理快速的發展。陸兆禧將繼續在董事局任職。

To many Alibaba employees, Mr. Zhang, who led the rise of the company’s Tmall shopping site, is known as one of the most capable of the new generation of leaders.

對於阿里巴巴的許多員工來說，帶領公司的天貓商城獲得巨大成功的張勇，是新一代高管中最有能力的人之一。

Mr. Zhang will need all the youthful energy he can manage to steer an e-commerce goliath that employs more than 30,000 people across the globe. He will very likely move quickly to address company inefficiencies that Mr. Ma identified last week in a speech to employees in Beijing.

要想管理這家在全球僱傭了3萬人的電子商務巨頭，張勇必須動用自己所有年輕旺盛的精力。他很可能將迅速着手解決馬雲上週在北京對員工發表講話時提到的效率不高的問題。

During the speech, Mr. Ma said the company would strive not to have a net growth in employees over the coming year. Instead, he said, Alibaba will work to transfer employees between departments and use technology to smooth operations.

馬雲在這次演講中說，今年整個集團的員工總數不會增加一個人。他說，阿里巴巴會讓員工在不同部門間調動，利用科技來提高運營效率。

Alibaba’s shares fell in recent months as Alibaba became involved in a public spat with a Chinese regulator over fake items on its shopping sites. It also missed revenue targets last quarter.

最近幾個月，由於阿里巴巴與中國一家監管機構就其購物網站上假貨問題發生了矛盾，阿里巴巴的股價下挫。此外，它也未能達到上季度的營收目標。

But on Thursday, the company’s stock rose after the news of the leadership shake-up and the release of the retailer’s earnings.

然而週四，在宣佈領導層變動的消息和盈利報告之後，阿里巴巴股價出現了上漲。

In an earnings statement, Alibaba said that in the quarter that ended March 31, its net profit was $463 million, down 49 percent from the same period a year earlier and below analyst forecasts. Alibaba’s revenue rose to $2.8 billion, compared with a year earlier, roughly in line with the consensus analyst estimate.

阿里巴巴在一份盈利報告中稱，在3月31日結束的季度裏，公司淨利潤爲4.63億美元，較去年同期下降了49%，低於分析師的預期。與去年同期相比，阿里巴巴的營收上升至28億美元，基本上與分析師的普遍預期相符。

Though analysts generally agree that Alibaba’s long-term growth potential still lives up to the hopes that surrounded its listing last year, many have become more cautious about how much the company can increase earnings in the coming months. One issue, they say, is that Alibaba makes less money from advertising on smartphones than it does on computers, yet more of its traffic comes via phones.

儘管分析師們普遍認爲阿里巴巴的長期增長潛力仍然符合去年上市時外界的期望，但對於未來幾個月阿里巴巴的利潤能增加多少，許多人的態度越來越謹慎。他們說，一個問題是，阿里巴巴通過智能手機上廣告獲得的利潤，少於電腦上廣告的利潤，然而該公司旗下服務的訪問流量更多來自手機。

Alibaba also reported a net profit of $1.2 billion using figures derived from nonstandard accounting rules, a rise of 16 percent from a year earlier. The figures leave out items like special payments to employees after its offering in September, and are meant to be a closer approximation of future profits.

阿里巴巴還用源自非標準會計規則的數據通報稱，實現淨利潤12億美元，同比增加16%。這些數據未計入部分項目，如去年9月IPO後發放給員工的特別款項，這樣做的目的是更接近未來的利潤預期。

Since then, Alibaba’s e-commerce business has continued to add revenue. But it has struggled with the less straightforward business of keeping investors happy. Shares have steadily receded from a November peak of $119.15 toward the company’s listing price of $68. The shares closed Thursday at $86.

自那時以來，阿里巴巴電商業務的營收繼續增加。然而讓投資者滿意的任務卻沒有那麼簡單，阿里巴巴做得不那麼好。自去年11月達到119.15美元的高點後，阿里巴巴的股價穩步下滑，直逼68美元的發行價。阿里巴巴股票週四以86美元報收。

In part, Alibaba is suffering from the huge expectations of such a prominent and successful listing, experts say.

專家稱，因爲上市備受關注且極爲成功，隨之而來的巨大期待在一定程度上給阿里巴巴造成了影響。

”The I.P.O. was clearly very fully priced; it was high but not unreasonable. But by the end of the first day of trading, a lot of the future upside was already priced into the stock,” said Bill Bishop, an independent technology investor and editor of the Sinocism China Newsletter.

“IPO顯然非常徹底地體現出了其價值；當時的價格很高，但並非離譜。但到首個交易日結束時，未來會出現的很多利好因素都已經反映在了股價中，”獨立科技投資者、Sinocism中國新聞簡報的編輯利明璋(Bill Bishop)說。

For all the emphasis on the company’s share price, Alibaba’s leaders are unlikely to act like most executives, who may view their primary job as maximizing shareholder value. In his speech last week, Mr. Ma made it clear that he planned to stick to his long-held philosophy of putting shareholders behind the company’s customers and employees.

儘管強調公司的股價，但阿里巴巴的領導層不太可能表現得像許多高管那樣，後者可能會認爲自己的主要工作就是實現股東利益最大化。在上週的講話中，馬雲明確表示，他打算堅持自己長期以來的理念，即優先關注公司的客戶和員工，之後纔是股東。

”We can’t make every analyst happy; we have to build the future,” he said. “If we were a traditional company, we would have to follow closely our stock price and what investors want. However we handle it, we would be exhausted. We need to think clearly about our first love, making it easier to do business across the world.”

“我想我們沒有辦法滿足每一個分析師對我們的期望，但是我們必須去創造未來，”他說。“如果我們像傳統企業一樣，去經常關注我們的股票，投資者想要什麼，我們做什麼，這個公司永遠會疲憊不堪，我們一定要想清楚當年的初心：讓天下沒有難做的生意。”

Though Mr. Ma has stepped away from the day-to-day operations of Alibaba, his letter to employees and his recent speech show that he has a big hand in managing the strategic direction of the company.

儘管馬雲已經脫離了阿里巴巴的日常經營，但寫給員工的信及最近的講話表明，他在管理該公司的戰略方向上，起着重要作用。

Even as Alibaba focuses on managing its rapid growth, Mr. Ma will probably be watching the company’s biggest rival, Tencent. Though Alibaba’s smartphone applications attract hundreds of millions of users, Tencent’s WeChat messaging app dominates the time that people in China spend on their mobile phones.

即便阿里巴巴把精力集中在了管理迅速增長上，馬雲仍然可能會持續關注該公司最大的競爭對手騰訊(Tencent)。雖然阿里巴巴的智能手機應用吸引了數億用戶，但是從中國人使用手機的時間來看，騰訊的通訊工具微信依然佔據主導地位。

With social networking and chat features alongside an e-commerce platform run by China’s second-largest e-commerce company, , Tencent may be able to take sales that would otherwise have gone to Alibaba, analysts say.

分析人士稱，由於具有社交和聊天功能，並且有中國第二大電子商務企業京東運營的電子商務平臺，騰訊或許可以分走一些本應流向阿里巴巴的銷售額。

Mr. Zhang said on Thursday that merchants who sell on Alibaba’s platforms were likely to spend more on mobile advertising down the line. Fifty-one percent of transactions on the company’s e-commerce sites now take place on smartphones.

張勇在週四表示，在阿里巴巴的平臺上銷售商品的商家，未來可能會在移動廣告上加大投入。目前，該公司電商網站上51%的交易發生在智能手機上。

The CLSA analyst Elinor Leung said that even if Alibaba did lose ground to competitors, she expected e-commerce sales and Alibaba’s revenue to continue to rise as more Chinese gain access to speedier smartphones.

里昂證券(CLSA)的分析師樑向奕(Elinor Leung)表示，即便阿里巴巴的部分市場流向了競爭對手，她預計隨着更多中國人擁有速度更快的智能手機，電商銷售和阿里巴巴的收入仍會繼續增加。

”I don’t see the mobile transition as a hurdle, but it is a transition,” she said. “You have to promote the Taobao and Tmall applications and spend more money on advertising, and on big data to support targeted advertising.”

“我不認爲移動交易是一種障礙，它是一種變革，”她說。“你得推廣淘寶和天貓應用，在廣告及大數據上投更多錢，從而實現更有針對性的廣告。”

Some employees at Alibaba seemed pleased by the sudden announcement of Mr. Zhang’s ascension. Several posted messages on social media accounts welcoming the shift and proclaiming that young people could have great accomplishments.

阿里巴巴的一些員工似乎對突然宣佈張勇升職感到高興。幾名員工在社交媒體賬戶上發帖，對這一變動表示歡迎，並稱年輕人可能會取得重大成就。

For his part, Mr. Ma welcomed the new chief executive with a joke about Mr. Zhang’s financial and accounting background.

馬雲本人則用一個玩笑，對綽號“逍遙子”的張勇表示了歡迎。那個玩笑關於這位新任CEO的財務背景。

”I am embarrassed that I used to say: ‘There’s nothing to fear but a C.F.O. pretending to be C.E.O.,’” Mr. Ma wrote, referring to a chief financial officer. “Alas, Daniel’s background was of a C.F.O., but he’s much much more.”

“說來慚愧，我以前經常說，‘天不怕地不怕，就怕CFO做CEO，’”馬雲寫道，CFO指的是首席財務官。“而逍遙子是CFO出身。”