Meet Daniel Zhang, the workaholic who's succeeding Jack Ma as Alibaba's chairman and keeps such a low profile that he was once mistaken for a janitor in the company's headquarters

Daniel Zhang

Daniel Zhang addresses the crowd at Jack Ma's retirement party on September 10, 2019.

• Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang took over as the company's executive chairman after cofounder Jack Ma retired on September 10, 2019.
• Zhang keeps such a low profile that the parents of an Alibaba employee once saw him in Alibaba's Hangzhou headquarters and mistook him for a janitor, Bloomberg reported.
• As Alibaba's new chairman, Zhang could face challenges amid the trade war between the US and China and a slowdown in the Chinese e-commerce industry.
• Zhang was a part of the team that created Alibaba's hugely successful Single's Day, the $25 billion online shopping event that is bigger than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined, Business Insider previously reported.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Jack Ma is a hard act to follow.

Daniel Zhang has accepted the challenge, first being promoted to CEO of Alibaba in 2015, the online marketplace founded by Ma, and then succeeding him as chairman after Ma's retirement on September 10.

Zhang, however, is as private as Ma is flamboyant.

Read more: Inside Jack Ma's 60,000-person retirement party, which was held in an Olympic stadium and featured employee performances that made Ma cry

Alibaba did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment on the transition or Zhang's background.

Keep reading to learn more about Daniel Zhang.

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