“These past two days have been the most difficult since I joined AliPay seven years ago.” ~ Lucy Peng, Cofounder of Ant Financial Services (Alibaba Group)
Summary: Lucy Peng is a Chinese businesswoman. She is the co-founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba. She is also the Chief People Officer at Alibaba managing the welfare and appraisal of over 35,000 employees. Having no traditional business background, Lucy Peng has still managed to make it to the list of influential and powerful people at several occasions. Her means of approach are with kindness. Colleagues and subordinates have often regarded Lucy as a fun person to work with, and someone who is motivating and brings out the best in you.
Nationality: Chinese
Industry: E-commerce Technology
Q: Did you join Alibaba expecting great success? on fortune.com
A: No, I really just enjoyed the process of doing something with a group of enthusiasts. I compare the company’s unique culture to that of Starbucks. When I visited the U.S., I found that each Starbucks store was like a family. The expression in the eyes of the employees was like those often found between sisters and brothers rather than co-workers. So I set up a “mom and pop” model at Alibaba in which one executive, “mom,” in every group focused on fostering teamwork and inciting passion, while another, “pop,” did quantitative performance assessments.
