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Alibaba Film Chief Grants First Interview: What China Can Do for Hollywood3 min read

26 January 2016 2 min read

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Alibaba Film Chief Grants First Interview: What China Can Do for Hollywood3 min read

Reading Time: 2 minutes

In her first sit-down since becoming Jack Ma’s top global film exec, Zhang Wei reveals what China’s web giant can offer Tinseltown (and it’s not just Superman sheets).

Although her studio has yet to release a single film, and her name remains unfamiliar to most in the industry, Alibaba Pictures president Zhang Wei arguably is the most powerful woman in Chinese entertainment. Shortly after Alibaba Group founder and executive chairman Jack Ma took his Chinese e-commerce behemoth public in September 2014 – raising a historic $25 billion on the New York Stock Exchange – he handpicked Zhang to become the chief international strategist and outward face of his ambitious new film endeavours. Ma’s expansion into film is part of a rapidly growing entertainment empire that spans mobile movie ticketing services, cinema distribution tech, minority stakes in top local movie studios Huayi Brothers and Le Vision, the Netflix-like streaming video service Tmall Box Office, a multiyear movie licensing deal with NBCUniversal, a partnership with Paramount as the “official promotional partner in China” for Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and plans to fully acquire leading online video site Youku Tudou for US$4.8 billion.

The job is a logical move for Zhang, whose connection to Chinese entertainment stretches back to her childhood. In junior high school in Beijing, she won a competition to star in a weekly kids talk show called Our Generation, which she hosted throughout high school. Later, after graduating from Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania and earning an MBA from Harvard Business School, she returned to China in 1999 as host of CCTV’s groundbreaking business show Dialogue – the first local talk show to introduce Fortune 500 business leaders to the Chinese audience – interviewing CEOs such as Jeffrey Immelt, Larry Ellison and Sumner Redstone. While the Western press suggested she harboured ambitions to become the “Oprah of China,” Zhang, who lives in Beijing with her husband and 2-year-old son, scoffs at the notion, saying the show merely was a hobby while she advanced her core pursuit of becoming a business leader. Her resume also includes stints as managing director of CNBC China and COO at Chinese TV network Star (during the period it was owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp).

In 2008, Zhang joined Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group, where she spent several years heading up corporate development, investment and acquisitions from various roles. When Ma began his audacious drive into the entertainment sector in 2014, Zhang’s international media background made her a natural candidate to lead the company’s nascent film and TV business. She was sent to close the $805 million takeover of Hong Kong-based ChinaVision Media, which would soon be rebranded Alibaba Pictures Group. The new subsidiary later poached Zhang Qiang, then vice president of the all-powerful state-backed distributor China Film Group, to serve as its CEO. Zhang (no relation) is said to focus on Alibaba Pictures’ domestic Chinese business, while Zhang Wei has been given free rein to set up an office in Los Angeles and build relationships with Hollywood and other overseas territories – all in an effort to fulfil Ma’s vision for the young company to emerge as a premier global studio within the span of a few years.

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via: Hollywood Reporter

Image Credit: The Hollywood Reporter – Jasper James

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