Alibaba is reabsorbing a familiar name into its ranks: Chen Hang, better known in tech circles as Wuzhao. The e-commerce giant plans to buy back investor shares in HHO, the startup Chen founded in 2021, and reappoint him as CEO of DingTalk—Alibaba’s enterprise collaboration platform. Once the deal closes, current CEO Ye Jun will step aside and take on a broader role within the company.
For those who’ve followed Alibaba’s internal shuffles over the years, Chen’s return feels like a full-circle moment. He was the one who originally created DingTalk from scratch, growing it into one of China’s most widely used workplace apps. Before exiting Alibaba in 2021, he had served as CEO of DingTalk and held a senior post in its B2B operations.
Today, DingTalk claims more than 700 million users across China. It works with over 5,600 ecosystem partners, cutting across 20 sectors of the national economy and operating in 135 cities. Its suite of artificial intelligence tools, Alibaba says, sees over ten million uses per day.
When reached for comment, Alibaba confirmed the news to 36Kr.
From intern to founder, and back again
Chen’s history with Alibaba dates back to 1999, when he interned at the company. But instead of joining its founding team, he took a detour—spending 11 years working in Japan. Despite the distance, he stayed close to key figures like Jack Ma and Eddie Wu. In fact, it was Wu who eventually convinced him to return in 2010 to help shape Taobao’s product strategy.
Chen’s early efforts included stints on eTao and Laiwang, both of which didn’t pan out. But in 2015, he assembled a new team and took another swing—this time with DingTalk. That bet paid off, turning the platform into a core part of Alibaba’s B2B stack.
By 2019, DingTalk was rolled into Alibaba’s cloud intelligence unit in a company-wide reorganization led by then CEO Daniel Zhang. Chen was reassigned to a group-level post under Zhang Jianfeng. A year later, in 2020, Alibaba went a step further—integrating DingTalk more deeply with its cloud services, a move aimed at capturing more enterprise clients. Chen stepped down as CEO to become special assistant to Daniel Zhang.
The integration was logical on paper. But DingTalk’s goal—user growth—didn’t always align with Alibaba Cloud’s mandate to boost revenue. Tensions between scale and profit started to show.
Then, in 2021, Chen left. Along with a handful of DingTalk veterans, he launched HHO, a startup geared toward global expansion and consumer-facing products. Its portfolio was eclectic: wireless earbuds, pet supplies, and exploratory efforts in Japan. Its investors included Vision Plus Capital.
But the integration of DingTalk into Alibaba Cloud didn’t last. By August 2023, DingTalk was spun out again. A few months later, in November, Alibaba pulled the plug on Alibaba Cloud’s IPO altogether.
Those decisions foreshadowed deeper changes inside the company. After Daniel Zhang stepped down, Wu stepped in and wasted no time redrawing priorities. He ditched legacy plans—like taking Alibaba Cloud public—and began pushing for younger leadership and a renewed emphasis on product.
AI became a central focus. On March 13, Alibaba rolled out a new version of its Quark app, a consumer tool that blends AI-assisted research, search, and task execution into one interface. It made waves both in tech circles and among everyday users. The update signaled Alibaba’s intention to go beyond backend infrastructure and put AI into the hands of consumers.
Quark’s redesign is being led by Wu Jia, a rising product lead within the company.
KrASIA Connection features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Deng Yongyi for 36Kr.