Chinese digital finance giant, Ant Financial, has named company veteran Simon Hu as its new chief executive officer as the firm rides on the wave of growing domestic demand for services.
Simon Hu, who has served as the company’s president since November 2018 and was previously president of Alibaba Cloud, will oversee Alipay and the Digital Finance group, according to an internal memo by the company. He will report to Eric Jing, who will shift his focus to international strategy, but remains as executive chairman.
The appointment «is part of our efforts on growing our three strategic pillars, namely globalization, meeting domestic demand in China, and technology,» the company said in a statement.
Ant Financial, the online finance giant controlled by billionaire Jack Ma, started out in 2004 as a way for Alibaba Group to pay for goods. It has since evolved into a $150 billion behemoth covering micro-lending, insurance, credit-scoring, and money-market funds. Ant has user base of 900 million domestically and counting.
