Alibaba Group Holding Ltd Appoints Former Goldman Sachs Exec Michael Evans As President

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE:BABA) appointed former Goldman Sachs executive J. Michael Evans as president Tuesday. The move is effective immediately and marks the latest managerial shake-up at the Chinese e-commerce giant. It comes after Daniel Zhang, former chief operating officer, replaced Jonathan Lu as CEO in May.

Evans, 57, has been an independent member on Alibaba Group's board since the company's initial public offering in September 2014. He will lead Alibaba Group’s international growth efforts. Evans will continue to serve as a member of the Alibaba Group board.

“Michael has been a close adviser to Alibaba Group for many years, and we greatly value his deep knowledge of our business, his experience as a proven business builder and leader globally, and his more than 20 years of experience in China,” Zhang said in a statement Tuesday.

Evans previously spent 30 years in global finance, including the last 20 years as a partner of Goldman Sachs, where he served as vice chairman, head of global growth markets and chairman of Asia before leaving the firm in 2014.

“Globalization is Alibaba Group’s most important strategy for the coming decades, and our goal is to help 10 million global businesses and serve 2 billion consumers around the world,” Zhang said.

Investors are now looking ahead to Alibaba’s latest quarterly results, due out Aug. 12, with a conference call with shareholders scheduled for 7:30 a.m. EDT. It will be the fourth public earnings report from Alibaba after Jack Ma, the company's founder and executive chairman, led the e-commerce giant to a record-breaking $25 billion initial public offering in September.

The Chinese e-commerce giant previously posted sales in the January-March quarter that beat Wall Street forecasts, as revenue leaped 45 percent, boosted by mobile transactions.

Shares of Alibaba have dropped 25 percent this year, and have lost nearly 17 percent of their value since its IPO.