Peng Lei
Peng Lei | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1972/73 China |
| Occupation(s) | Entrepreneur, business executive |
| Years active | 1994–present |
| Known for | Co-founder of Alibaba Group, CEO of Alipay, founder of Ant Financial Services Group |
Peng Lei (; born 1972/73), also recognized as Lucy Peng, is a Chinese entrepreneur and billionaire who co-established Alibaba Group. As of March 2017, she was counted among the 21 self-made female billionaires in China.
Career
Peng completed her business administration studies in 1994 at Hangzhou Institute of Commerce (currently Zhejiang Gongshang University) and subsequently spent five years as a lecturer at Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics. Following her marriage, she transitioned from academia to collaborate with her husband and Jack Ma in launching Alibaba in September 1999. Their partnership exemplified the significant gender diversity present among Alibaba's original founders.
At the outset, Peng was responsible for founding and leading Alibaba’s Human Resources division, where she introduced the "mom and pop" framework to effectively integrate team collaboration with individual performance evaluation.
Between January 2010 and February 2013, Peng held the position of CEO at Alipay, which emerged as China’s dominant payment platform, boasting over 800 million users by 2014 and valued near $60 billion. In March 2013, she took on the role of CEO at Alibaba Small and Micro Financial Services, spearheading advancements in mobile payment technologies.
Although Peng was considered for Alibaba’s CEO role in 2013, she was ultimately not appointed. She went on to establish Ant Financial Services Group in 2014. In September 2015, Alibaba and Ant Financial together acquired a 40% stake in Indian mobile wallet company Paytm, with Peng joining its board of directors. By 2016, Ant Financial secured $4.5 billion through private funding rounds, reaching an estimated valuation of $60 billion.
Additionally, Peng served as chief people officer at Alibaba Group for over ten years, managing a workforce of approximately 35,000 employees.
Peng attained billionaire status in 2014 based on Alibaba’s valuation prior to its historic IPO. After the IPO was postponed and Jack Ma reduced his public engagements, Peng unexpectedly took on some of his public-facing responsibilities, including hosting the finale of Africa's Business Heroes in November 2019.
Personal life
Three years into her academic career, Peng married Sun Tongyu; the couple experienced a brief separation before remarrying.
Porter Erisman, former Vice President at Alibaba, portrayed Peng as "a humorous and grounded" leader in his 2012 documentary Crocodile in the Yangtze. He later published Alibaba's World: How a Remarkable Chinese Company is Changing the Face of Global Business in 2015.
In 2015, Wealth-X ranked her as the third wealthiest woman in technology, while Fortune named her the #11 Most Powerful Woman in Asia. By 2016, Forbes placed her as the 35th most influential woman worldwide and #17 within Asia, estimating her net worth at $1.1 billion.
External links
- An Interview with Peng Lei：The DNA Code of Alibaba, Green Herald.
- 彭蕾解读小微金服：无线及国际化成未来重点 (Peng Lei interpretation of small and micro payments), Sina Corp (Chinese)
- Video of Lucy Peng speaking at the China 2.0 conference at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, September 28, 2012 (Chinese)