ALLEN Career Institute
Liu Qiangdong (born 10 March 1973 or 14 February 1974[Note 1]), also known as Richard Liu, is a Chinese Internet entrepreneur. He is the founder of JD.com or Jingdong Mall, one of the leading e-commerce industry leaders in China.
As of January 2018, Liu’s net worth rose to US$12.7 billion with JD.com surging in its stock price.
Liu was arrested on August 31, 2018 in Minneapolis, Minnesota on suspect of “criminal sexual conduct”, and was released pending a formal complaint. Liu’s attorney and JD.com have denied any wrongdoing by Liu. The case is still under investigation.
After graduation, Liu was employed by Japan Life, a Japanese health product enterprise, and successively served as the director for computers, the director for business, and the logistics supervisor. Two years later, in June 1998, he started his own business Jingdong in Zhongguancun High-tech Industrial Park in Beijing as a distributor of magneto-optical products. By 2003, he had opened 12 stores.
The SARS outbreak in 2003 kept staff and clients of Jingdong at home and forced Liu to rethink the business model and divert to online business. Liu launched his first online retail website in 2004, and founded JD.com (short form for Jingdong) later that year. In 2005, Liu closed off all brick-and-mortar stores and become an e-commerce business.
The company has become one of the leading e-commerce businesses in China. JD.com applied to go public in the US in January 2014. On 22 May 2014, the date of JD.com’s IPO, the stock price rose about 15%
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