Alibaba's Executive Chairman Jack Ma will step down in September 2019 and hand over the reins to Chief Executive Daniel Zhang, the Chinese e-commerce giant said on Monday.

Ma, who co-founded the company almost 20 years ago which now is the world's biggest e-commerce behemoths, said in a letter to his employees that "transition demonstrates that Alibaba has stepped up from a company that relies on individuals, to one built on a culture of talent development". Ma, who was a school teacher in China's small town of Hangzhou where Alibaba is headquartered and now one of the richest men in the world, will get to back to education, the billionaire said in a letter to his employees.