Jack Ma (Co-Founder, Alibaba Group)
CHINA
The Chinese business magnate, businessman, politicians and philanthropists Jack Ma or Ma Yun born on September 10, 1964. He is the co-founder and executive chairman of the global business company, Alibaba Group He is also Chairman of SoftBar, Chairman of The Natural Conservancy (TNC), China Council, and co-Chairman of the high-level committee on strategic cooperation in the field of Chinese digital technology. Ma is an important advocate of a market-oriented and open economy. Ma is a leading business leader, and he is considered to be a global ambassador for Chinese enterprises, frequently ranked as one of the most powerful people in the world, with Forbes rating his 21st position in the list of “World’s Most Powerful People”.
Alibaba won a total of 25 million USD in foreign capital contributions twice in October 1999 and January 2000. In order to address World Trade Organization (WTO) problems, the project was intended to expand the domestic e-commerce industry and establish an on-line e-commerce network for Chinese companies, in particular SMEs. In 2003, he had created Taobao Marketplace, Alipay, Ali Mama and Lynx to develop the global e-commerce network. eBay offered to buy the company after the rapid rise of Taobao. But Ma disagreed, then, with a $1 billion gift from Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang. Alibaba has recently raised over $25 billion in the first public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2014, after reaching the entire $25 billion, the highest initial public offering of the financial history in the US, to become one of the most successful technology companies in the world. Ma served as Chairman of the Executive Board of Alibaba Company which has nine major subsidiaries: Alibaba.com, Taobao, Tmall, eTao, Alibaba Cloud Computing, Juhuasuan, 1688.com, AliExpress.com and Alipay, Alibaba was also a holding company. Alibaba had over a total of 1 trillion yuan online transactions in November 2012.
From the beginning of 2016, Ma has been owner of the Château de Sours in Bordeaux, the Chateau guerry in Côtes de Bourg and the Château Perenne in Blaye, Côtes de Bordeaux.On 9 January 2017 Ma met President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in order to discuss the potential of 1 million jobs opened in the next five years, in the interest of Alibaba in the country. On 8 September 2017, Ma met United States President-elect Donald Trump at the Trump Tower. In the same month, Ma joined with Sir Li Ka-shing in a joint venture offering the digital wallet service in Hong Kong.
In 2019, Forbes named Ma as a “Heroes of Philanthropy 2019” and honored him with his work on helping poor communities in China, Africa, Australia and the Middle East with a “Malcolm-S.Forbes Lifetime-award.”