Jack Ma, the richest man in China and founder/chairman of global e-commerce firm Alibaba, will leave his top leadership post in September of 2019, he announced. Ma will be succeeded by Daniel Zhang, Alibaba’s current CEO who’s served at the company for 11 years. Going forward, Ma, 54, will remain a member of the Alibaba Partnership, a group of three dozen people who nominate a majority of the company’s board of directors.

Jack Ma founded Alibaba in 1999. 

“This transition demonstrates that Alibaba has stepped up to the next level of corporate governance from a company that relies on individuals, to one built on systems of organizational excellence and a culture of talent development,” said Ma, in a letter he released this week.

An English teacher by trade, Ma famously built Alibaba from scratch in his Hangzhou, China, apartment long before many Chinese even used the internet. Ma’s initial strategy was B2B focused, linking China-based exporters with overseas buyers, but soon Alibaba grew into a true e-commerce retailer before later expanding into varied areas like entertainment, cloud computing, travel services, online payments and more. Over the years, Alibaba’s website offerings have also included promotional products, which at one time helped place Ma on Counselor’s Power 50 list of the most influential people in the market.

“This transition demonstrates that Alibaba has stepped up to the next level of corporate governance.” — Jack Ma

As Alibaba’s influence developed, the firm turned to Wall Street in 2014. Its $25 billion initial public stock offering remains the largest ever by a Chinese company. The IPO is one of several reasons Ma’s personal wealth has reached a reported $37 billion.

While Ma has presided over a successful firm, Alibaba has also faced its share of controversy. Alibaba has repeatedly been accused of allowing counterfeit goods on its platforms and from 2008-2011 both Alibaba.com and its Taobao platform were on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Notorious Markets List. The list “highlights prominent and illustrative examples of online and physical marketplaces that reportedly engage in, facilitate, turn a blind eye to, or benefit from substantial piracy and counterfeiting.”

Those claims have never seriously tempered Alibaba’s gains, however. In its fiscal year ended March 31, 2018, Alibaba reported sales of $39 billion, with a profit of nearly $10 billion.