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Apr. 28 (NBD) -- Chinese tech giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) announced Monday that it has removed Jiang Fan, one of its senior executives, from its list of partners after an internal investigation into Jiang's alleged affair with a social media influencer who is also a co-founder of Alibaba-backed KOL agency Ruhnn Holding Ltd (NASDAQ: RUHN).

The decision comes ten days after Jiang's wife warned the social media influencer on China's Twitter-like platform Weibo not to "mess around with" her husband, which sparked widespread public discussion.

The Alibaba investigation concluded that the social media influencer has not taken advantage of Jiang's position, president of Alibaba's marketplaces Taobao and Tmall, to benefit her own KOL company.

But Alibaba decided to remove Jiang from his place among the company's 38 partners, who lead the company, set its culture and vote on the make-up of the majority of its board, because Jiang "improperly handled his family problems, triggering a serious public relations crisis which harmed the company's reputation".

Besides, Jiang was also deprived of 2019 annual bonus and demoted from senior vice president of Alibaba Group (M7) to vice president of Alibaba Group (M6).

The punishment shows Alibaba's resolve to uphold its corporate value and partnership mechanism. But for Jiang, it means a denial of the ticket to Alibaba's succession plan and the likelihood for Jiang to be re-included into the list is very small, said Zhang Shixin, founder of QiRong Consulting, to National Business Daily (NBD) on Monday. 

But there are also voices that Jiang is punished more severe than what he deserves.

Graduated from the computer science major in Fudan University, the 35-year-old Jiang previously worked in Google China and Kai-Fu Lee's Sinovation Ventures. Jiang joined Alibaba in 2013 when the e-commerce giant bought his mobile app startup.

Serving Alibaba for 7 years, Jiang has successfully grown Taobao's smartphone business and led the data-driven content strategy on the platform. Being the youngest partner of Alibaba, he has been widely seen as a potential successor of the e-commerce giant.

For Alibaba, the company is facing a possible change in its succession plan after the scandal. The most discussed topic is whether Alibaba can find another talented person to rival Pinduoduo's founder Huang Zheng if Jiang is kicked out of the succession list.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn