Alibaba bets on global ambassadors for a cosmopolitan touch

HANGZHOU - French digital marketing professional Chloe Goncalves never expected that her work in China would make her an online celebrity.

Her post on LinkedIn half a year ago announcing her trip to China to work for Alibaba received over 31,000 likes, 2,900 comments and found her 1,600 new followers worldwide, inspiring her to blog monthly on her adventures.

In the past four months, she has been to Alibaba's annual cloud computing conference, joined in the Nov 11 Global Shopping Festival, visited Taobao villages, talked with Jack Ma, taken taichi classes and been busy trying to learn Chinese.

"Things in China are changing so fast and the market and people seem ready to adopt new technology much faster than back home," she said.

Goncalves is one of 32 associates from 14 countries chosen by the Alibaba Global Leadership Academy for one year of training before becoming the company's global ambassadors.

Many Chinese firms are expanding overseas and Alibaba hopes that half of its revenue will come from international business soon.

"A big challenge for expansion is lack of understanding between China and other countries," said Brian Wong, vice-president of the Alibaba Group in charge of global initiatives.

Many foreigners still regard China as an exporter of cheap products, even though the country has a thriving domestic consumer market where international products are in high demand.

"As an ecosystem which enables crossborder trade, we want to share this story of new China and the new economy, which is more about the rising middle class, millennials, innovation and globalization," he said.

Consumption and services will dominate China's economic landscape by 2030, with the private consumer market reaching $9.6 trillion and accounting for 47 percent of GDP. The future Chinese consumer will be richer, older and online, according to a report by Morgan Stanley.

Wong pointed out that foreign staff with expertise will not only help identify and navigate new markets, but more importantly, "help bridge China and international markets and enable local companies big and small to use internet technology to trade globally."

Xinhua