In a major management reshuffle, China’s Alibaba Group on Tuesday announced it would replace its top bosses, in a move aimed at spurring the e-commerce giant’s growth at a time when the Chinese economy is slowing despite an end to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions a half-year ago.

Current CEO and Chairperson Daniel Zhang will step down from the roles to focus on Alibaba’s cloud division, the company said, as the titan moves ahead with a plan to split into six business units to adapt to fast-changing technologies.

Zhang has been concurrently serving in three roles since December, when he took over as head of the cloud unit after it suffered an outage that it described as its "longest major-scale failure" for over a decade.

The CEO role will be given to Eddie Yongming Wu, chairperson of Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall Group, while Executive Vice Chairperson Joseph Tsai will take over Zhang as chairperson.

Tsai, a Taiwan-born Canadian citizen, owns the NBA basketball team Brooklyn Nets and is the chairperson of Alibaba-owned Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post. He helped to found Alibaba in the late 1990s.

Wu was the company’s technology director when founded in 1999. He also served as special assistant to Alibaba’s co-founder and former board chairperson Jack Ma between 2014 and 2019. He has had stints as CTO of Alibaba’s digital wallet business Alipay and as a chairperson of Alibaba Health.

Alibaba’s reorganization will allow five of its six business divisions, excluding the core e-commerce business, to raise outside capital and go public.

Both appointments will take effect on Sept. 10, Alibaba said.

Zhang became Alibaba Group’s CEO in 2015 and succeeded Ma as chairperson in 2019. He is known for creating the Singles’ Day shopping festival, which has grown to become the world’s largest online shopping extravaganza over the years.

"This is the right time for me to make a transition, given the importance of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group as it progresses toward a full spin-off," Zhang said in a statement.

"It would be inappropriate for me to continue serving as chairperson and CEO of both companies at the same time during the spin-off process," he noted.

"I look forward to working closely with Joe and Eddie in the coming months to ensure a seamless transition."

After the news, Alibaba’s Hong Kong shares were down about 1.5% Tuesday afternoon.

The surprise reshuffle comes after a tumultuous two years that saw Alibaba heavily targeted by increased regulatory scrutiny and after the group announced in March that it would restructure into six units, each with its own boards and CEOs.

Ma, the firm’s best-known co-founder and once China’s richest man, has kept a low profile with few public appearances after publicly criticizing China’s regulators and financial systems during a speech in Shanghai in October 2020.

Shortly afterward, the government scuttled a planned initial public offering of Alibaba’s financial affiliate Ant Group. It had been set to raise $34.5 billion in what would have been the world’s largest share offering at the time.

Alibaba was later fined $2.8 billion for breaching antitrust rules as Chinese authorities cracked down on the once-freewheeling technology industry.

In March, Ma returned to mainland China after reportedly being sighted in Europe, Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong over the past few years. His itinerary has been closely watched as a barometer of Beijing’s attitude toward private businesses.

He is currently a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo until Oct. 31, according to a university profile page, which describes his research as "sustainable agriculture and food production.

"The appointment of Daniel to focus on running cloud is really a show of confidence and trust in him to take the most precious business and run with it to develop it in the right way given this age of generative artificial intelligence (AI)," said Brian Wong, a former Alibaba employee and author of the book, "The Tao of Alibaba."

"The idea or expectation that one person could manage the business’ crown jewel Cloud and at the same time manage the entire Alibaba Group is an unreasonable expectation."

Its China-facing e-commerce division, which includes the Taobao and Tmall marketplaces, will stay wholly owned by Alibaba, but the other five units will be spun off, with Alibaba saying in May it aimed to complete the public listing of its cloud unit within the next 12 months.

Analysts have estimated the cloud unit to be worth $41 billion to $60 billion but have said the reams of data it oversees could put it in the cross-hairs of regulators at home and abroad.