Ant Group's Chairman and CEO Jing Xiandong has stepped down as legal representative and chairman of Alipay (China) Network Technology Co Ltd, the digital payment unit of Ant Group. Jing handed over the baton to Ni Xingjun, the chief technology officer of Ant Group.

"This is a standard corporate governance practice, and is a move that aligns with our business operations," an Alipay spokesperson said in a statement.

The move came after Alibaba revealed last Tuesday in its latest annual report that seven executives of Ant Group, including Jing, CTO Ni Xingjun and president of its international business group Zhao Ying, had resigned from its partnership structure.

Jing joined e-commerce giant Alibaba in 2007 and was mainly responsible for finance and operations. Jing became the president of Ant Group in June 2015 and was appointed CEO in October 2016. In 2020, Jing took over the legal representative position of Alipay from Peng Lei, one of the 18 founding members of Alibaba.

Ni has been with Alipay since it started in 2004. He is a core member of the founding team, designing many generations of the technical architecture and developing the early versions of the software. He rose to the rank of CTO in August of 2020.

fanfeifei@chinadaily.com.cn