Jack Ma resigns as president of his elite business school

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People familiar with the matter said Jack Ma will step down as the dean of the elite business school founded six years ago because Beijing is cracking down on the billionaire’s influence in Chinese society as a whole.

People familiar with the matter said that Huban University, an executive training program that is said to be as difficult as Harvard University, will also reorganize its education curriculum and change its name.

Jack Ma’s retreat from the college in his hometown of Hangzhou comes at a time when Chinese regulators are putting pressure on the founder of e-commerce group Alibaba and his business empire.

Since his speech criticizing regulators and state-owned banks in October, Jack Ma is one of China’s most high-profile entrepreneurs and has basically disappeared from public view.

Antitrust regulator fines Alibaba Record fine of $2.8 billion An investigation into monopolistic behavior was conducted last month, and Jack Ma’s fintech company Ant Group has been ordered Reduce business And reorganization because it $37 billion initial public offering Squashed last November.

Huban’s changes show that, despite entrepreneurs’ public appearances at this month’s Alibaba event, Beijing continues to work hard to limit Jack Ma’s influence.

A person close to Hupan said that Jack Ma will not receive any high-level official titles in the reorganized organization. But several people warned that Jack Ma is eager to keep in touch with the school and may give lectures in the future.

A person close to the school said that the authorities are worried that Jack Ma is calling Pan to build a strong network, which may run counter to the Communist Party’s goals. Some senior Chinese officials see Huban as a modern version of Donglin Academy. Donglin Academy was a 17th-century educational institution, a debate ground for thinkers who influenced politics and weakened the Ming government.

Huban was established to teach selected team entrepreneurship, business management and corporate culture. “We hope that the guard will run for 300 years,” Jack Ma said when he welcomed the first batch of students in 2015.

Hupan changed its name to Hupan Innovation Center on its website and social media accounts last week. Videos on Chinese social media also showed that a worker used a blowtorch to delete the name of Huban University from a large stone plaque in front of the campus.

Change the name to suit government activities to ensure that only licensed educational institutions can use the title of “university”. Hupan is not an official university.

A social media account called “Shake Island” run by the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, People’s Daily, severely criticized Tiger Class and its students on Thursday.

The Xia Ke Post said that there are 1,186 company “universities” in China. The post also said: “Hubei University is actually a private non-commercial organization, not a degree-granting educational institution.” He pointed out that “students” participating in such activities actually want to “join a group, establish connections, and obtain resources. .” “.

It also criticized Hupan’s role in nurturing a peer group that supports students, and her company is being scrutinized by the authorities.

A person familiar with the matter said: “Ma Yun needs to be out of touch with the organization, but he is worried that after Jack Ma completely withdraws, Hupan may have difficulty attracting students.” “This college is popular because of him, not the courses.”

The profile picture of Ma on the Hupan website has been changed to the picture of the classroom.

Financial Times Reported Last month, the school suspended the application for a new batch of first-year students.

Alibaba referred the question to Hupan, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Supplementary report by Liu Nian in Beijing

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