The MIT engineer-by-training will have to vanquish regional rivals if he is to achieve Alibaba’s long-held ambitions of becoming a truly global player in the mould of Amazon.com Inc. or EBay Inc. Lazada is the single most important piece of a slowly coalescing international business that for now encompasses mainly sideline businesses in India, Pakistan, Brazil and Russia. With sales growth slowing in China, the eventual goal is to get half of Alibaba’s revenue from abroad.
(Mar 4): In December, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. put Pierre Poignant in charge of Lazada, the subsidiary spearheading the Chinese e-commerce giant’s high-stakes Southeast Asia expansion. The choice was out of character for several reasons. Poignant is a professional manager—a type Alibaba supremo Jack Ma has long disdained. He was part of Lazada’s founding team, also typically disqualifying. Finally, as a Frenchman, he’s one of a very few Westerners to have cracked Alibaba’s upper echelons.
Poignant, 40, takes charge at a fraught moment for Lazada. Since being absorbed by Alibaba, the Singapore company has been roiled by management turmoil—Poignant is the third CEO in nine months—even as it fights a multi-front war against well-funded, fleet-footed rivals. In Indonesia, by far the region’s biggest and most promising market, Lazada has fallen behind homegrown players.
