Alibaba Group Holding has appointed Wan Ling Martello to serve on its main board and its audit committee from Sept. 1. The move is a further signal of Alibaba’s international ambitions.
Martello is currently executive VP at consumer goods giant Nestle with responsibility for Asia, Oceania and sub-Saharan Africa. She was previously chief financial officer at Nestle and CFO at Walmart International. Originally from the Philippines, and now a U.S. citizen, she is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Hokkien, Tagalog and English.
"Her global perspective, retail expertise and sharp business acumen will make her an invaluable member of our board. As Alibaba grows globally, we need business leaders like Ms. Martello, to be part of the internationalization process and help ensure it goes smoothly,” said Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba Group.
The announcement on Wednesday followed the recent appointment of former Goldman Sachs banker Michael Evans as Alibaba’s head of international.
Also Wednesday, Alibaba announced a further expansion of its cloud computing business Aliyun and a joint investment in Snapdeal, an Indian e-commerce site.
Alibaba said that it will open its seventh cloud computing hub in Singapore and make Singapore the center of Aliyun’s overseas business.
Alibaba, Japan’s SoftBank and Foxconn the Taiwanese company that manufactures many Apple products, will lead an investment of $500 million in Snapdeal. Other existing investors will also join the funding round, though eBay will sell down its stake.
In October last year, Snapdeal got a $627 million investment froWang Jianlin takes 'rich' crown from Li Ka-shingm SoftBank, which was itself an early backer of Alibaba and remains one of its biggest shareholders.