DingTalk launches a surprise leadership shuffle: there is no handover, and MuleRun’s head Chen Yusen (born in 1992) takes over as CEO.

CryptoWorld News: Alibaba Group announced that Chen Hang (alias Wu Zhao) has stepped down as CEO of DingTalk and that Chen Yusen, born in 1992, has taken over. Chen Yusen is the person in charge of Alibaba Cloud’s internal AI agent project MuleRun.

On June 10, before the decision was announced, the Group Partners Committee had just responded on the internal network to a long exposé published by former employees about the controversy surrounding high-pressure management at DingTalk, titled “Inside Ding.” The Committee stated that DingTalk’s management approach “is not the kind of way that Alibaba culture should look.”

After Chen Hang returned to DingTalk in 2025, he continued the high-pressure management style from his early start-up days to drive an AI transformation, which led employees to accuse Chen Hang in the lengthy article of enforcing attendance and checking on staff in the early hours of the morning.

In its response, Alibaba’s Partners Committee stressed that progress should not be won at the cost of employees or by suppressing culture.

The successor, Chen Yusen, is a technical serial entrepreneur. At age 22, he co-founded the cybersecurity company Changting Technology, which was later acquired by Alibaba Cloud. After joining Alibaba Group, in 2025 Chen Yusen launched the AI agent project MuleRun within Alibaba Cloud, becoming one of the new-generation management talents the group is focusing on cultivating.

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GateUser-eb706989
· 3h ago
Return without tricks, and you'll be out of a job in a year; high-pressure management doesn't work anymore at today's Alibaba.
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RecedingTideAfterTheRain
· 3h ago
From Changting to MuleRun to DingTalk, Chen Yusen’s résumé is pretty solid, but his management style probably isn’t that far off from having no strategy at all.
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KiteStringQuant
· 3h ago
The 92-born CTO-type CEO, Alibaba's recent leadership change is quite interesting.
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OwlChainViewer
· 3h ago
The high-pressure “switch to AI progress” finally got too much for the partner, who couldn’t stand it anymore and stepped in. Can Chen Yusen bring DingTalk out of this endless cycle of “involution”?
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