News Press Releases

Alibaba Group to Host Global Conference on Women and Entrepreneurship

BABA | May 18, 2015

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE: BABA) will hold its inaugural Global Conference on Women and Entrepreneurship on May 20-21 in Hangzhou, China at the Dragon Hotel. The goal of the conference is to spark dialogue and action on what can be done to encourage more women to pursue their professional and personal ambitions.

The more than 500 attendees will include leaders and executives from the fields of politics, business, finance, technology, fashion and media – women who are not only accomplished in their own right, but who are driving the conversation at their respective organizations as the influencers of current and future generations of women across China.

Several Alibaba executives will give keynote speeches, including Jack Ma, Executive Chairman; Lucy Peng, Chief People Officer and Chief Executive Office of Ant Financial Services Group; and Maggie Wu, Chief Financial Officer.

The topic of women and entrepreneurship is vital to Alibaba’s core business. With its mission to make it easy to do business anywhere, Alibaba Group has enabled millions of women to become entrepreneurs in the fast-growing field of e-commerce, and today, more than 50% of all merchants on Taobao Marketplace are female.

Women are also well-represented throughout Alibaba’s employee base and leadership team. One-third of Alibaba Group’s 18 original founders are women, many of whom have since risen through the ranks to lead Alibaba’s business divisions; and 9 of the 30 members of the Alibaba Partnership are women. Currently, more than 40% of the employee base is female and approximately 35% of executives are women.

"The world is a better place because of women’s important creations and contributions. We know that women will lead us to a better and brighter future, and we are honored to host so many inspirational women as we work to empower the next generation of female leaders and entrepreneurs in China,” said Jack Ma. "Women have been an integral part of Alibaba Group since its inception, and without them, we would not be where we are today.”

This conference is part of Alibaba’s ambition to bring the best of the world to China and the best of China to the world. Over 30 distinguished speakers will address the conference, many of whom are traveling to China from around the world to bring global perspectives on the topic of female empowerment to a predominantly Chinese audience. Several of the international speakers include Arianna Huffington, Chair, President and Editor-in-Chief of The Huffington Post Media Group; Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women; Jacqueline Reses, Chief Development Officer at Yahoo!; and Jessica Alba, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of The Honest Company. The event will also showcase the best of China to those following the conference from around the world. Follow along on Alizila and @AlibabaGroup.

About Alibaba Group

Alibaba Group’s mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. The company is the largest online and mobile commerce company in the world in terms of gross merchandise volume. Founded in 1999, the company provides the fundamental technology infrastructure and marketing reach to help businesses leverage the power of the Internet to establish an online presence and conduct commerce with hundreds of millions of consumers and other businesses.

Alibaba Group’s major businesses include:

Taobao Marketplace (www.taobao.com), China’s largest online shopping destination
Tmall.com (www.tmall.com), China’s largest third-party platform for brands and retailers
Juhuasuan (www.juhuasuan.com), China’s most popular online group buying marketplace
Alitrip (www.alitrip.com), a leading online travel booking platform
AliExpress (www.aliexpress.com), a global online marketplace for consumers to buy directly from China
Alibaba.com (www.alibaba.com), China’s largest global online wholesale platform for small businesses
1688.com (www.1688.com), a leading online wholesale marketplace in China
Aliyun (www.aliyun.com), a provider of cloud computing services to businesses and entrepreneurs