On March 1st, Alibaba Group CEO Wu Yongming issued an internal letter to all employees of Local Life Group (Gaode, Ele.me), announcing that Yu Yongfu, Chairman and CEO of Local Life Group, will step down from his management position at the end of Alibaba's fiscal year on March 31st. Ele.me will set up a chairman and CEO respectively, with Wu Zeming, the chief technology officer of the local living group born in the 1980s, serving as the chairman of Ele.me, and Han Liu, the delivery manager of Hummingbird born in the 1980s, serving as the CEO of Ele.me.
It is reported that 48 year old Yu Yongfu has been with Alibaba for 10 years, responsible for local living business for nearly 3 years. In addition to local life, Yu Yongfu is also responsible for multiple businesses such as Gaode, Alibaba Mama, Da Wen Yu, and eWTP Technology Ecological Fund.
According to public information, in April 2018, Alibaba acquired Ele.me; In October of the same year, Ele.me merged with word-of-mouth to establish a local life service company; In July 2021, Alibaba merged Gaode, local lifestyle business, and Feizhu into the lifestyle service sector, which will be managed by Yu Yongfu.
When taking over Ele.me, Yu Yongfu faced significant challenges. Subsequently, under his leadership, Ele.me continued to promote loss reduction and improve its basic capabilities. In the second quarter of 2022, Ele.me achieved a positive change in unit economic efficiency for the first time, and has maintained this trend to this day.
Wu Yongming commented on Yu Yongfu in a letter from all staff, saying, "He has served as the number one position in multiple business sectors of Alibaba, and has been entrusted multiple times in times of crisis, making important contributions to the innovation and development of a group of businesses, and laying a solid foundation for team growth."
Wu Zeming, who served as the Chairman of Ele.me, is one of the partners of Alibaba's post-80s generation. He joined Taobao in 2004 and is a core member of Alibaba's e-commerce system technology architecture construction. He has successively held positions such as President of the New Retail Technology Business Group, Chief Technology Officer of Local Life Business, Chief Technology Officer of Alibaba Group, and Vice President of Alibaba Damo Academy.
Han Liu, the newly appointed CEO of Ele.me, was born in 1988 and is one of the CEOs of Alibaba's post-85 generation. After joining Alibaba, he has served as Ele.me's Senior Vice President, Head of Real Time Retail Business, and President of Hummingbird Instant Delivery. It is reported that Hummingbird is one of the most core assets of Ele.me, with over 3 million riders. During Han Liu's management, Hummingbird promoted the construction of a logistics supercomputing platform and built a new Blue Knight development and security system.
Prior to this personnel change, there were multiple rumors of "selling" Ele.me, and Ele.me also refuted the rumors multiple times. According to a report by LatePost, Ele.me's three-year and five-year independent business development plans are nearing completion.