DingTalk sees leadership reshuffle: Wu Zhao steps down, 1992-born tech geek Chen Yusen takes over as DingTalk CEO

On June 11th, Alibaba announced a management adjustment for DingTalk: Chen Hang stepped down as the CEO of DingTalk, and Chen Yusen took over.

Chen Yusen was born in 1992 and is a tech-savvy serial entrepreneur. Public information shows that he founded the cybersecurity company Changting Technology at the age of 22, which was later acquired by Alibaba Cloud. In 2025, Chen Yusen launched an internal startup within Alibaba Cloud, leading the R & D of the AI Agent product MuleRun. After taking over as the CEO of DingTalk, he also became the youngest division CEO at Alibaba.

This adjustment came after the recent public controversy surrounding DingTalk.

On June 10th, the Alibaba Partnership Committee posted an article titled "Caring, Loyal, and Growth-Oriented: This is the Alibaba Culture" on the company's internal network, responding to the discussions triggered by the long post "Inside DingTalk" written by a former DingTalk employee. The post criticized the management style of the DingTalk team in rather harsh terms, pointing out that "this is not what the Alibaba culture should be like."

According to public reports, the author of "Inside DingTalk" stated that they joined DingTalk in June 2025 and then joined the still-confidential "Project O". This project later made its debut at the DingTalk 8.0 launch event under the name "ONE", which was defined as the work information flow entrance that DingTalk created for the AI era, aiming to reorganize work information such as messages, schedules, meetings, approvals, and documents through AI, changing from "people looking for tasks" to "tasks finding people".

When DingTalk 8.0 was released in August 2025, ONE was placed at the core of DingTalk's AI transformation. However, in the narrative of "Inside DingTalk", after ONE was launched, it faced high internal expectations and continuous iteration pressure, and the subsequent entrance position and product priority also changed. The article then extended to reflections on DingTalk's product decision - making mechanism, organizational management style, and the direction of AI office products.

This article also brought DingTalk founder Chen Hang back to the center of public opinion.

Chen Hang, with the nickname "Wuzhao", founded DingTalk in 2014 and returned to DingTalk in April 2025, succeeding Ye Jun as the CEO. The outside world originally expected his return to help DingTalk find a new growth path in the AI era. However, the discussions triggered by "Inside DingTalk" put the internal management style, product promotion mechanism, and AI transformation pressure of DingTalk under the spotlight.

Subsequently, Ma Ruila, the former vice - president of DingTalk and the person in charge of AI products, also posted a long article titled "Outside DingTalk" on his personal WeChat official account, stating that he completed the resignation procedures on May 15th and officially bid farewell to his three - year career at Alibaba and left DingTalk. He mentioned in the article that he "couldn't calm down for a long time" after reading "Inside DingTalk" and expressed his understanding of the situation of front - line products and teams. This further amplified the outside world's discussions on DingTalk's organizational status and AI transformation pressure.

In the post of the Partnership Committee, Alibaba emphasized that "mutual respect, treating people as individuals, and being caring and loyal" are the cultural essence of Alibaba, and "no matter how the times change and how technology develops", this essence should not change.

The post also placed this discussion in the organizational proposition of the AI era. The Alibaba Partnership Committee believes that innovation in the AI era does not rely on "high - pressure and mechanical execution" but on employees' passion and creativity. Only by fully respecting the individual value of employees can real customer value be created.

For DingTalk, which is promoting AI transformation, the management change is not only a personnel adjustment but also means that its AI product roadmap and organizational approach will enter a new observation period.

This article is from Tencent Technology. Author: Xiaojing, Editor: Xu Qingyang. Republished by 36Kr with permission.