Alibaba veteran to step down at Local Services Group as e-commerce giant proceeds with sweeping restructuring

The head of Alibaba Group Holding's Local Services Group (LSG), one of the e-commerce giant's six business units, is stepping down amid an ongoing restructuring process.

Yu Yongfu, who was appointed to lead LSG after Alibaba announced its restructuring last March, will exit the unit - which includes delivery business Ele.me and mapping service Amap - at the end of March, according to a statement by Alibaba on Friday.

Yu will pass on his chairman and chief executive roles to a younger group of managers, with Wu Zeming stepping up at Ele.me and Liu Zhenfei taking up the senior roles at Amap. The 47-year-old Yu will remain as a partner at Alibaba, which also owns the South China Morning Post. The statement did not elaborate on whether or who will take on the senior roles at LSG.

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The management reshuffle is the latest step by Alibaba to promote a new generation of younger managers following a call by Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu Yongming to "rejuvenate the team" in an internal letter in September, when he took over as CEO.

Wu said in that letter that in four years time the company's core management would be made up of millennials.

Last December Taobao and Tmall Group, Alibaba's bread-and-butter e-commerce business, appointed six new executives to "create a culture of innovation that will foster our new generation of talent ".

Under Yu, LSG achieved steady growth in recent quarters. The unit's revenue grew 13 per cent year-on-year in the latest quarter, driven by growth at both Amap and Ele.me, according to Alibaba.

Amap is one of only five Chinese apps with over 700 million monthly active users, according to research firm Yuanchuan Institution, alongside Tencent Holdings' WeChat, ByteDance's Douyin, and Alibaba's Taobao and Ant Group's Alipay.

Alibaba's shares closed 0.21 per cent higher at HK$73.05 on Friday in Hong Kong.

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