As many tech companies are struggling to hire more women employees, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group founder and chairman Jack Ma has attributed his company’s success to his female colleagues and staff members.

Speaking at the 2017 Global Conference on Women and Entrepreneurship in Hangzhou, China, Ma said empowering women by increasing their employment will support companies to develop their business, especially because women are detail-oriented and caring.

“Our secret of success is the women in our company, which also makes us distinct. It is women who have encouraged me to undergo the tough times in the past 18 years since the founding of Alibaba,” Ma told the audience.

In 30 to 50 years, men’s rational thinking can be easily challenged and replaced by artificial intelligence, but women’s perseverance can outperform robotics, Ma said.

Furthermore, men only know how to build a company that competes in sales, but women know how to build company with quality, he added.

Ma said Alibaba’s customers had the best online shopping experience as female employees at the company focused on developing quality, so that its 500 million users shop with ease and comfort.

Women make up more than 30 percent of Alibaba’s high-level managers and a third of its 18 founding partners.

Ma also said that up to 47 percent of Alibaba’s total workforce was made up of women.

“I think, the more I study the leadership of my female colleagues, the more scared I get, because women don’t realize the potential they have,” Ma said. (ags)

Source: The Jakarta Post