Rank
25
Jack Ma
BEIJING, CHINA - NOVEMBER 10: (CHINA OUT) British actor Daniel Craig (L) and Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma attend the ceremony of 2015 Tmall 11.11 Global Shopping Festival at the Water Cube on November 10, 2015 in Beijing, China. Alibaba Group and Hunan television held a ceremony at the Water Cube (aka National Aquatics Center) for the 2015 Tmall 11.11 Global Shopping Festival which attracted consumers to shop on Tmall.com with discounts on November 11 which was also called the "Singles Day". (Photo by ChinaFotoPress/ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images)Photograph by ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images
- TitleChairman
- CompanyAlibaba
The company is, as Fortune once wrote, “like a mash-up of Amazon, eBay, PayPal—and Yahoo.” But it’s unlike those well-known names in a crucial way: It made $3.9 billion in profits on $12.3 billion in revenues last year. As with most big Chinese enterprises, there are reasons for caution: The stock has slumped and the company’s first two quarters this year were tepid compared to 2014. But in its most recent quarter, Alibaba rebounded dramatically, with a 32% sales increase and 30% rise in earnings per share. One particularly promising sign for the company and new CEO Daniel Zhang: Alibaba’s revenue from mobile advertising nearly tripled compared to equivalent figure a year ago.