By YU Hao
XU Lei, CEO of JD.com will step down by the end of this month for personal reasons, the e-commerce giant said Thursday. CFO XU Ran will take Xu’s place, and he will be replaced by SHAN Susheng, the CFO of JD Logistics.
Xu Lei joined JD.com in 2009 from PC maker Lenovo. He was first in charge of JD’s marketing operation. Two years later, JD.com went public, but Xu left the company and joined Yougou, a now marginalized e-commerce site, as CMO. He returned to JD.com in 2013, still in charge of marketing. He was behind the first 618 shopping event, which has now become an annual routine for all e-commerce sites.
In April last year, Xu was appointed CEO of JD.com after its founder Richard Liu stepped down.
In Q1, JD.com recorded revenue of 243 billion yuan (US$35 billion), up 1.4 percent year on year and a net profit of 6.3 billion yuan, while it lost 3 billion yuan in Q1 last year due to the pandemic.
