AMONG the 86,000 employees who work at Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., chief executive Daniel Zhang is not known as Daniel, or Mr. Zhang, or even boss.

Instead, employees refer to him as “xiaoyaozi,” or the “free and unfettered one.” The nom de guerre, after a character from a Louis Cha wuxia novel, has appeared on his business card, Chinese company press statements and in Alibaba’s literature.

Stewardship of the most valuable company in Asia is passing to the free and unfettered spirit, a low-key financial wizard, who has led the company’s effort to drag the traditional retail industry into the 21st century.

Jack Ma will step down as executive chairman of Alibaba in 2019, handing the reins to Zhang, who became chief executive officer barely three years ago.

The 46-year-old certified accountant has been the driving force behind a mandate to transform old-school commerce using technology that it’s dubbed “New Retail.”

Since Zhang, known as Zhang Yong in Chinese, was named chief executive in May 2015, “Alibaba has seen consistent and sustainable growth for 13 consecutive quarters,” Ma said in a letter. “His analytical mind is unparalleled, he holds dear our mission and vision, he embraces responsibility with passion, and he has the guts to innovate and test creative business models.”

One of Zhang’s iconic achievements at Alibaba is the creation of the “Singles Day” shopping festival, a Black Friday-like online shopping spree held Nov. 11 every year.

Shoppers from home and abroad spent around 168.2 billion yuan (US$24.5 billion) during last year’s “Singles Day” festival, and it is now the world’s largest 24-hour shopping festival, dwarfing similar shopping bonanzas round the world, including Black Friday in the United States as well as Amazon Prime Day, which last year tallied US$1 billion in sales.

The company’s stock has risen 87 percent over his tenure and Alibaba now has a market value of about US$420 billion, eclipsing WeChat operator Tencent Holdings.

Zhang’s appointment holds some irony: Ma often said he wasn’t fond of professional managers because of a focus on short-term performance.

Zhang is known as more of a financial mind than a technology visionary in Ma’s mold. The veteran CFO espouses a less flamboyant style than his charismatic boss, who dispenses folksy wisdom on the global conference circuit and hob-nobs with heads of states and celebrities.

“We don’t know much about (Zhang) even though he’s been CEO for a while, because he’s by nature a very low-key person, low profile. He’s happy to not be in the limelight,” said Duncan Clark, author of “Alibaba: The House that Jack Built.”

Zhang has admitted as much himself. “Jack Ma is a guy with many ideas. He is very, very creative,” Zhang said in an interview with the Financial Times last year. “But I’m the guy who always wants to put my foot on the ground.”

But for Zhang, success has become a habit. The best team-building method is to move from one victory to another, he said at the closing of last year’s “Singles Day” festival.

“Tracking customers’ footprints online and recommending them their favorites doesn’t mean a lot,” said Zhang. “Recommending something that hits their hearts, though they’ve never bought or even seen it, that is real intelligence.”

Ma hired Zhang from Chinese gaming giant Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd. in 2007 — an episode Ma handled with kid gloves because Shanda’s founder was a longtime friend and prominent entrepreneur. Ma went to Chen Tianqiao’s home for dinner and apologized in person for the recruitment.

“At the time, Alibaba was a smaller private company so it shows that Daniel is also a visionary,” Chen said in an interview Monday.

Zhang joined Alibaba first as chief financial officer of Taobao, when the consumer-to-consumer marketplace was fresh off a victory over Meg Whitman and eBay but also battling a reputation for fakes.

He proved his worth by turning Taobao Mall into Tmall, which sold higher-quality goods direct from branded merchants. That service later became instrumental in helping repair Alibaba’s image, and the United States removed the company from its “Notorious Markets” list in 2012.

“Daniel is a proven international business leader and innovator with a strong track record of delivering results,” Ma said in a statement in 2015 when the announcement was made that Zhang would become Alibaba’s chief executive.

“He has the confidence of our entire management team, and there is no better person to lead Alibaba Group as we embark on the next stage of our growth on top of the strong foundation.”

With “Singles Day” festival as a start, Zhang hopes to keep Alibaba evolving and creating things with disruptive innovation. “To redefine business as Apple Inc. redefines a mobile phone” is how Zhang describe his goal.

Zhang’s academic background infinance and career experience as CFO of Shanda and a senior manager at PwC’s audit and business advisory division in Shanghai before joining Alibaba may explain his detail-oriented work style.

According to Ying Hong, former marketing director of Alibaba’s e-commerce platform Tmall, the fighting power of the Tmall team has been formed based on Zhang’s work style, which is to keep a perfect balance between strategy and details, said a report of iCEO.com.

“We are in the middle of a meeting, and the CEO would suddenly point at a chart slide and say ‘there must be something wrong with this curve,’” recalled one of Zhang’s colleagues.

“He likes researching, and one needs to be familiar with every single details of a case to answer all his questions,” Ying recalled. He bears more and more responsibilities at the company, and he wants to be sure that every detail behind a plan is real and solid, Ying added.

Zhang now has his sights set on helping Alibaba further its New Retail strategy and to expand overseas. He has overseen the expansion of Alibaba’s Hema supermarkets across the country. A typical Hema supermarket lets users shop for groceries online or offline as they please, with the option of having their purchases delivered to their doorstep. At the fresh seafood section, consumers can also request chefs to whip up hot meals on the spot.

“Jack Ma’s said CFOs don’t make good CEOs, but Daniel is an exception,” said Kim Eng Securities analyst Mitchell Kim. “The challenges will be how Alibaba can expand outside of Asia.”

Earlier this month, Zhang penned an editorial for CNBC in which he laid out his leadership approach. They included management tropes such as thinking long-term, but there were more novel axioms such as “buy, don’t bet,” in which Zhang explained that acquiring beats investing when it comes to strategic projects.

“If you’re going to win a race, it’s more important to buy a horse than just bet on it,” he wrote.

His elevation now ranks him a cut above a team of lieutenants who’ve stood by Ma for a decade or more. Among them are Ma’s close confidante, Joseph Tsai, who’s also 54 and remains vice chairman, and Lucy Peng, once a front-runner for leadership who led Ant Financial before taking the helm at Southeast Asian operation Lazada.

“I’ve worked closely with Daniel since 2007 when he first joined us as chief financial officer of Taobao,” said Tsai. “On intellect and energy, I can barely keep up with him. But it’s his thoughtfulness and humility that is most impressive as a leader.”

Alibaba’s recent acquisition of food delivery service Ele.me and subsequent plans to merge it with recommendations unit Koubei is part of a broader plan to integrate on-demand delivery to other parts of its business, including Hema and e-commerce platforms Tmall and Taobao.

“We strongly believe that bricks-and-mortar stores can create huge value, but their model needs to be upgraded, and their operations need to be digitized,” Zhang said at a conference in Singapore earlier this year.(SD-Agencies)