51 - 150 in alphabetical order of CVC unit: Toby Xu, chief financial officer, Alibaba
In December 2021, China-based e-commerce firm Alibaba announced that Toby Xu would replace Maggie Wu as the company’s chief financial officer (CFO) at the start of April 2022.
In his new role, Xu assumes responsibility for Alibaba’s corporate venturing activities, which were carried out under the auspices of Alibaba Innovation Ventures until early 2020. At this point, Jack Ma and Simon Xie, Alibaba’s co-founders, transferred all their equity in Alibaba Innovation Ventures to Hangzhou Zhenxi Investment Management, according to reports from PEDaily. However, the move was for administrative reasons and unit’s operations are still controlled by the wider Alibaba group.
In recent months, the company has participated in the $50m series B raise for robotics developer Fair, as well as in the venture round for Jida Transportation, a developer of traffic simulation software.
Over the years, Alibaba’s portfolio has included purchases of, or investments in, Southeast Asian e-commerce unicorns Lazada and Tokopedia, bricks-and-mortar retailers Easyhome, Sun Art and InTime, technology developers such as Magic Leap and app-based service providers like Ofo and Ele.me.
At the time of the announcement of Xu’s promotion – a move long-planned by the company – Wu said: “We are in a relay race and we must have new generations of talent to take the company forward. I trust Toby even more than I trusted myself when I first took up the CFO position years ago.”
Wu will remain with Alibaba and will continue as a partner as well as an executive on the company’s board. Xu joined the company from big four accountant PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2018 and he was appointed deputy group CFO in the following year.
Xu graduated from Fudan University in Shanghai, China, with a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1996.
