Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. announced Monday in China that Jack Ma will be replaced as chairman of the company a year from now.

On Sept. 10, 2019, current Chief Executive Daniel Zhang will succeed Ma (pictured), although Ma will remain on Alibaba Group’s board of directors until its annual general meeting of shareholders in 2020. Ma will also remain a lifetime partner of the Alibaba Partnership, which consists of 36 other high-ranking executives.

Ma wrote in a letter to employees and shareholders that he had thought about the succession plan for a decade, adding that the aim was always to make Alibaba a company not just run by individuals but “built on systems of organizational excellence.”

Ma said that after the company was formed in 1999, he already had a view for it to cross three centuries, which of course meant putting a big emphasis on developing talent within the company to take the reins when the time was right. He mentioned his time working as a teacher, preparing his students one day to be the purveyors of knowledge.

“A sustainable Alibaba would have to be built on sound governance, culture-centric philosophy, and consistency in developing talent,” said Ma. “No company can rely solely on its founders. Of all people, I should know that. Because of physical limits on one’s ability and energy, no one can shoulder the responsibilities of chairman and CEO forever.”

The Hangzhou-based company is one of the largest tech firms in the world, starting out in ecommerce with just $60,000. In two decades the company has expanded into other areas such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence and is now worth around $420 billion. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Ma himself is worth $40 billion.

The former English teacher, who actually goes by the name “Teacher Ma” within the company, said he has “lots of dreams to pursue” and still wants to return to education in some way. “I think someday, and soon, I’ll go back to teaching. This is something I think I can do much better than being CEO of Alibaba,” Ma said last week in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Photo: UNclimatechange via Flickr