Meet Richard Liu Qiangdong: He’s the CEO of JD.com
Richard Liu Qiangdong is both the founder and CEO of JD.com, which is considered to be one of China’s biggest e-commerce platforms. The current worth of JD.com is noted to be approximately 57.6 billion dollars (USD). Richard Liu was reported by Forbes.com to have an 11-billion-dollar net worth.
Richard Liu was born in China and has had his ups and downs as an entrepreneur. At one point, his 12 brick-and-mortar businesses had faced real issues due to a SARS outbreak that had impeded his business aspirations in 2003. Deciding that brick-and-mortar stores might not be the answer, so he founded the online retailer, JD.com. A year later, Liu had decided to close every one of his stores. Liu changed gears and instead focused only on e-commerce. He decided to sell a plethora of quality consumer goods as well as electronics. Richard Liu had spent a plethora of his time working on his computer programming skills while doing freelance programming coding work while he was a college student, so knowing the ins-and-outs of how a website is built, was quite a hands-on education for Liu.
Regarding his formal educational background, Mr. Richard Liu was awarded a degree in sociology in 1996 from Renmin University of China. After graduating from Renmin University, Liu decided to attend China Europe International Business School, where he earned his EMBA.
After finishing his studies, Liu worked for Japan Life, which was a company that sold health products. While working for Japan Life for two years, Liu held many roles — from the director for computers to director for business. Liu was involved in business beginning in 1998. Richard Liu had been involved in the restaurant sector for his original business, but it did not work out. He decided to get into the retail milieu. He thought that online commerce would be an excellent route to go instead of sticking with brick-and-mortar.
By 2016, JD.com was noted to have net revenues of 37 billion dollars (USD) according to an article about Liu Qiangdong in a Variety.com article. The company was also trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange by 2014. Known as a wealthy, young and dominant man, Richard Liu is an internet celebrity in his homeland.
Today, JD.com is a strong rival with Jack Ma’s Alibaba.com. Indeed, both Chinese of these e-commerce companies are juggernauts in their own right. Richard Liu noted that JD.com had added approximately 30,000 employees in 2017, according to an interview Liu did for the World Economic Forum in January 2018. Consumer goods, food as well as fashion is what Richard Liu were some of JD.com’s most popular purchases according to Richard Liu in an interview he did, Liu says that he treats all customers the same.
When he was asked about his wealth being a burden or a pleasure, Liu said it is neither. He noted that wealth is more of a responsibility. The question of how to use wealth to grow your wealth, the company and the society, simultaneously — that is what Richard Liu wants to do. Liu also noted in the World Economic Forum interview that his four core businesses at JD.com are e-commerce, logistics, technology and telecom. Richard Liu says that he compares JD.com to Walmart, which sells good quality products. He noted that JD.com has one billion products to choose from, but Walmart only has several million. Liu also pointed out that the costs for e-commerce at Costco in the US is similar to JD.com.
Meet Richard Liu Qiangdong: He’s the CEO of JD.com
When he was asked about Amazon.com being the biggest online retailer, Richard Liu stated that he wants JD.com to be the biggest e-commerce company, which would also make it the biggest e-commerce company in the world.
