Alibaba's Lazada hires Ant Group veteran to be head of payments

[BEIJING] Alibaba Group Holding's Lazada Group is creating a new role to lead payments in Southeast Asia for the first time, and tapped a former Alipay executive for the position.

Dayong Zhang, former general manager of Southeast Asia for Ant Group's Alipay, will become Lazada's head of payments, the company said, confirming a report by Bloomberg News earlier on Friday. The move underscores the e-commerce company's effort to generate growth from the business.

Lazada is seeking to take on Southeast Asian internet rivals such as Grab Holdings and Sea, which have been aggressively pushing their payment products. The region's payments market is expanding rapidly on the back of rising demand for online shopping.

"With his payments background and experience, he will be able to lead Lazada into the next chapter of its growth and further strengthen our competitive advantage through payments technology," Lazada said in a written response to questions from Bloomberg.

James Chang, Lazada's Singapore chief executive officer, will take on a broader regional role, becoming the group's chief business officer. Wee Lee Loh, head of Lazada Group CEO's office, will replace Mr Chang as the Singapore chief.

Since Chun Li took the helm of Lazada about a year ago, the company has been investing in technology and focusing on localisation to cater to different consumer tastes across Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Lazada recorded more than 90 per cent order growth during the quarter ended in June, and has about 150 million monthly average users.

BLOOMBERG