14 | theceomagazine.com
TOUR GUIDE TO TYCOON
Alibaba’s astronomical rise reflects Ma’s own. Raised by
a struggling family in a Communist China still closed off
to the West, the entrepreneur’s background points to
anything but that of a tech billionaire. After US
president Nixon visited his hometown in 1972, Ma
started learning English from the stream of tourists who
would stay at the city’s main hotel. Acting as a local
guide in exchange for language lessons, it was a tourist
who first gave him the nickname ‘Jack’.
“He was quite enterprising even at that early age,
and forward-thinking,” says David Morley, an Australian
who befriended Ma as a child while travelling with his
family in China. “I remember him being very confident,”
Morley tells The CEO Magazine. “My father Ken
thought there something special about this young man
and sort of took him under his wing.” Ma’s friendship
with the family would
change the course of his
life, with the Morleys
eventually taking him
on his first overseas trip
to Australia in 1985.
But having tasted the
outside world, Ma soon
found out what it meant to be rejected by it. College
after college turned him down, and even a KFC outlet
refused to hire him, before he finally landed a job as an
English teacher. More than 10 applications to attend
Harvard University were unsuccessful. Being okay with
rejection propelled him forward during the early days
of Alibaba. “They called me ‘Crazy Jack’,” Ma told the
2017 World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.
“Yes, we’re crazy but we’re not stupid,” he added.
“If everyone had agreed with me and thought our
idea was good we would have had no chance.”
It was during a trip to America in 1995 that he was
first introduced to the internet. Four years later, he
gathered together 17 of his friends in a tiny apartment,
convincing them to invest in an online marketplace
called ‘Alibaba’. Duncan Clark, author of Alibaba:
The House That Jack Ma Built, says it was Ma’s charisma
that delivered success against all odds. “He was able
to rally people around him, other entrepreneurs as well
as investors,” he says.
Today, Ma is a hero to many in China. “He’s
idolised,” says Andy Mok, the Managing Director
of Red Pagoda Resources, a Beijing-based start-up
advisory. “Because he is, in a sense, everyman, an
ordinary person who became extraordinarily successful.“YES, WE’RE
CRAZY BUT WE’RE
NOT STUPID.”
In Ma, many people see the promise of China.”
But despite his achievements Ma is known for being
low-key, often sporting sandals and Buddhist prayer
beads. When not flying across the world attending
international conferences and meeting world leaders
he spends his time reading, meditating or practising
tai chi. “He’s played the opposite of the ‘face’ card,
which in China means elaborate shows of wealth and
success. Instead Jack Ma has presented himself as
modest, humble – to the point of encouraging being
underestimated,” says Clark.
The business leader resigned from his position
as Alibaba CEO in 2013, but remains firmly at the
company’s helm as chairman. “He’s always had a very
clear long-term vision of
where he wants to take this
company,” adds Clark.SMALL BUSINESS
VISIONARY
That same vision has
inspired legions of
entrepreneurs in China and around the world. CEO of
the China Australia Millennial Project (CAMP) Andrea
Myles is one of those who looks to Ma for inspiration.
“He’s the 21st century CEO that we need,” says
Myles, pointing out that more than 40 per cent of
Alibaba’s workforce are women. “He believes in
openness and identifies diversity as a strength. In
Australia, we still seem to pay lip-service to that.”
CAMP connects young start-up talent from both
countries with a focus on the millennial market. “The
average CAMP participant is the same age as the
average Alibaba employee, and that’s 29,” Myles says.
Myles also believes that the West has a lot to learn
from the networks Alibaba has fostered between small
businesses across the world.
“We still operate mum-and-dad businesses in
isolation, in brick-and-mortar locations that aren’t
digitally enabled,” she says from Sydney, Australia. “We
need to cotton on to the fact that if you can sell on your
local street, you can sell to China.”
For a business founded on the idea of helping little
guys do big business, Alibaba’s numbers are staggering.
The company moved US$25.3 billion dollars-worth of
products during their 2017 Singles’ Day Sales (China’s
Black Friday) last November, up from US$16 billion »Cover story