Mover and Shaker of Alibaba

He is China’s version of Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates. He is the first mainland Chinese entrepreneur to appear on the cover of Forbes

From boycotting food products made of shark fins to fighting water pollution, he is an outspoken advocate for conserving the environment as well.

To mark the company’s 10th anniversary in 2009, he dressed as a punk rocker, performing in front of his 16,000 staff in a stadium.  

Childhood

Jack Ma was born on October 15, 1964 as Ma Yun in Hangzhou, China. To learn English, he used to ride 45 minutes to a hotel and act as a tour guide to foreigners.  He earned an English degree from Hangzhou Normal University after passing the college exam on the third try.

He was rejected by KFC and other employers in his hometown. He then started teaching  at a local college, but moonlighted as a street peddler, hawking flowers, books, flashlights and clothes, to balance the books.

Career

Ma first experienced the internet in 1995 on a short trip to Seattle – and quickly became obsessed. That year he launched his first internet venture, an online directory called China Pages, but he quit the following year after the government forced him into a joint-venture with a state-owned firm. 

In 1999, he started Alibaba, an e-commerce website, in his Hangzhou flat, with 17 friends and $60,000 of funds.  The site facilitated business deals between companies in China and the rest of the world.  It quickly emerged as a successful new player in the global market.

Four years later, he turned his attention to consumer trading with Taobao.com, an auction site that quickly bested eBay as the homegrown favorite.  The success of Taobao.com enabled Ma to ink a deal with Yahoo in 2005 making his company the largest Internet Company of China.

Ma now serves as Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group, which is a holding company with nine major subsidiaries – Alibaba.com, Taobao Marketplace, Tmall, eTao, Alibaba Cloud Computing, Juhuasuan, 1688.com, AliExpress.com and Alipay.

Accomplishments

In 2005, Ma was selected by the World Economic Forum as a “Young Global Leader”

In 2005, Ma was named one of the “25 Most Powerful Businesspeople in Asia” by Fortune

In 2010, Ma was selected by Forbes Asia as one of “Asia’s Heroes of Philanthropy”

Awarded an honorary doctoral degree by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in November 2013