Jack Ma

Jack Ma Yun (Chinese: 马云; pinyin: Mǎ Yún; born September 10, 1964) is a Chinese business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He is the co-founder of Alibaba Group, a multinational technology conglomerate. In addition, Ma is also the co-founder of Yunfeng Capital, a Chinese private equity firm. As of February 2024, with a net worth of $30.1 billion, Ma is the sixth-wealthiest person in China, as well as the 50th wealthiest person in the world, ranked by Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Ma earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in English upon graduating from Hangzhou Normal University in 1988. He became an English lecturer and international trade lecturer at Hangzhou Dianzi University following graduation. The rise and expansion of the software and personal-computer industries during the 1980s captured Ma's attention, prompting him to develop an interest in the nascent internet industry. Demonstrating such a propensity led him into the realm of internet entrepreneurship where he embarked on establishing his first business in 1994, subsequently resulting in the formation of a second company upon acquiring a deeper understanding of the internet's emergence and the promising commercial prospects it offered. From 1998 to 1999, he resigned from China Telecommunications Corporation, later starting the Alibaba Group with his colleagues in 1999. The company was initially founded as a B2B e-commerce marketplace website, yet the company later expanded into a wide range of industry domains across the Chinese economy, including e-commerce, high-technology, and online payment solutions.

In 2017, Ma was ranked second in the annual "World's 50 Greatest Leaders" list by Fortune. He has widely been considered as an informal global ambassador in Chinese business circles, and has continued to remain an influential figure in the Chinese business community and scene of startup companies. In September 2018, he announced that he would retire from Alibaba and pursue educational work, philanthropy, and environmental causes; the following year, Daniel Zhang succeeded him as executive chairman. In 2020, the Chinese government stopped plans for an IPO called for the digital payment solutions company Ant Group, a company that he founded, after he delivered a speech that criticized Chinese financial regulators for putting too much priority in minimizing risk.

In 2019, Forbes Magazine named Ma in its list of "Asia's 2019 Heroes of Philanthropy" for his humanitarian and philanthropic work supporting underprivileged communities in China, Africa, Australia, and the Middle East. In April 2021, Jack Ma ranked 26th in the "2021 Forbes Global Rich List" with a fortune of $48.4 billion USD. In July 2021, Jack Ma led Alibaba Group to top the 2021 China Charity List with a total cash donation of 3.22 billion yuan.