Ant Group’s President Han to become CEO in March; Jing to stay as chairman

By Kanjyik Ghosh

(Reuters) -The president and financial chief of China’s Ant Group, Cyril Han, will take over from Eric Jing as chief executive from March 1, showed an internal memo seen by Reuters which was confirmed by a spokesperson.

Han will continue to report to Jing who will remain as chairman, the memo showed.

Han became president in March during the fintech’s biggest organisational change since it was fined $984 million in July 2023 for violations in areas such as corporate governance.

As president, Han was responsible for Ant’s digital payments, digital connectivity and digital finance businesses.

Ant is the financial affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) Group, which owns 33%. It operates mobile payment app Alipay and was valued at over $300 billion in mid-2020 before an IPO that pulled due to regulatory concerns.

Han joined Alipay in 2014 where he has held several positions including vice president of strategic investment, chief financial officer and president, the memo showed.

Ant reported January-March net profit of 7.59 billion yuan ($1.04 billion), Reuters previously reported.

Han’s appointment was first reported by Bloomberg.

($1 = 7.2700 Chinese yuan renminbi)