On Aug. 22, Alibaba Group announced the appointment of Eric Jing as the board member to replace Jonathan Lu, effective from Sept. 1. Meanwhile, Alibaba indicated that Lu will serve as an honorary partner, in accordance with the Alibaba partner retirement system.

Jing is the president of Zhejiang Ant Small and Micro Financial Services Group Co., Ltd., the parent company of Alipay. Jing previously served in several capacities, including as COO of Ant Financial Services, CFO of Alipay and in leadership positions with Alibaba Group. He is a partner in the Alibaba partnership.

According to Alibaba's partner retirement system, if the age of a partner and his or her length of service to Alibaba amount to 60 or higher, the partner can apply to retire and serve as an honorary partner. Lu qualifies since he was born in 1969 and joined Alibaba in 2000.

Alibaba is the first Chinese Internet company to establish such a partnership, and to boast this unique retirement system. In July 2010, Alibaba established the partnership agreement in order to preserve the spirit of the partnership and to ensure the sustainability of its mission, vision and values. So far, Alibaba has 32 partners in total, 80 percent of whom were born after 1970.