Lazada Group announced that its executive president Pierre Poignant is succeeding Lucy Peng as CEO with immediate effect. Peng will remain executive chairwoman of the company.
Poignant is not a new face in Lazada Group, he’s been in top management positions since the e-commerce company’s start.
Prior to his new role, Poignant had several crucial roles within Lazada such as the COO, CEO of Lazada eLogistics, and finally group executive president since August 2018.
This reshuffle comes only 9 months after Alibaba installed Peng as CEO in March after it has raised its stake in the company to 90%. In a press statement, Poignant claims that Lazada has benefitted from the Alibaba ecosystem, especially on technological prowess and its logistics network. “2018 is a turning point for Lazada. We have improved and evolved and now come out stronger, more efficient, and more agile than at the start of the year. Our transformation has just begun and I am confident next year will be another watershed year,” said Poignant.
Such massive management transitions in tech companies are never without friction and in Lazada’s case, there have been rumors of a high turnover rate since Lucy Peng took over, and some employee dissatisfaction expressed on Glassdoor.
However, Lazada hasn’t said anything about the reasons behind the decision to remove Peng from the CEO position and it’s possible that her tenure was intended to be temporary. During Peng’s leadership, Alibaba and Lazada worked on integrating their platforms and released many new features. Lazada also took part in the 11.11 shopping festival that’s so popular in China, although it didn’t disclose the total sales volume.
As the new CEO, Poignant will lead the company’s development and continue to manage Lazada’s operations in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, working closely with country CEOs and regional functional team leaders.
Editor: Nadine Freischlad