Who is Jack Ma?

Jack Ma or Ma Yun is a Chinese entrepreneur born in October 15, 1964. He is one of the most powerful people in Asia, and among the most influential people in the world. He is also selected by Forbes as one of Asia`s Hereos of Philanthropy for his contribution to disaster relief and poverty.

(Picture: Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba)

He is the Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group, a family of highly successful Internet-based business. One of them is Alibaba.com which is going public friday next week.

He was born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province in China. He is married to Zhang Ying and they have one daughter and one son who is currently an undergraduate student of California, Berkeley. At an early age, Jack Ma developed a desire to learn English, although he failed the entrance exam twice. He attended Hangzhou Teacher`s Institute (Hangzhou Normal University).

Ma graduated in 1988 with a bachelor`s degree in English. While at school, Ma elected student chairman. He later became a lecturer in English and International Trade at the Hangzhou Dianzi University.

Jack Ma started building websites for Chinese companies with the help of friends in the US. He founded China Yellowpages in 1995, widely believed to be China`s first Internet-based company. From 1998 to 1999, Ma headed an information technology company established by the China International electronic Commerce Center, a department of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.

He founded Alibaba in 1999, which is a China-based business-to-business marketplace site which currently serves more than 79 million members from more than 240 countries and territories. Jack Ma`s Alibaba is planning to raise 20,1 billion in an IPO on friday next week.Alibaba`s mission is «To make it easy to do business anywhere».

Jack Ma serves as Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group, which is a holding company with nine major subsidiaries; Alibaba.com, Taobao Marketplace, Tmall, eTao, Alibaba Cloud Computing, Juhasuan, 1688.com, AliExpress.com and Alipay.

Alibaba`s online transaction volume exceeded one trillion yuan in November 2012, and Ma was thus labeled «trillion Hou», meaning literally «Trillion Yuan Marquis» in Chinese.

Alibaba launched Yuè Bao in 2013, which is a money market fund that users can invest in directly using Alipay. With $80 billion, it is the fourth largest in the world and is sending shock waves through China`s ossified banking system.

Alibaba is expanding into a dizzying array of fields, including cloud computing, messaging, mobile, mapping, TV, ride-sharing, taxi services, media and crowd-funding. Many of their investments have been with American companies like Amazon rival Shoprunner, ride-sharing service Lyft and Tango, which is a popular messaging app.

In 2009 at a shareholders Meeting, he encouraged those in attendance, including shareholders, customers and students from two Hong Kong universities, to take into their own hands and take action in the form of starting businesses to cope with the economic downturn rather than waiting for government of business to help them.

He reminded everyone that the great fortunes of the world were made by people who saw opportunities that others didn`t, and he noted that the aftermath of the recent global recession would be no different in terms of exposing new ways of doing business.

Jack Ma is a board member of Japan`s SoftBank and China`Huayi Brothers Media Corporation, and became a Chairman of the Board for the Nature Conservancy`s China Program after he stepped down from Alibaba as company CEO last year.

Alibaba`s IPO is the biggest U.S IPO in History!

The price range will be between $60 and $66 per share, which could value the company at well over $150 billion. The Alibaba IPO would make its offering the biggest U.S IPO on record, beating out Visa and Facebook.

Jack Ma is among the three richest in China. Which is Jack Ma ($11,2 billion), Ma Huateng ($15,6 billion), and Robin Li ($16,3 billion). They are all Internet entrepreneurs, but this is just the beginning. By the end of this year, 45% of the world`s Internet users will be from the Asia-Pacific region.

You can read more about Alibaba on this site. Search for Alibaba and read more about this amazing conglomerate company.

 

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