(Yicai Global) May 12 -- Shares in JD.com’s stock price surged as much as 8.1 percent today after the Chinese e-retailer said that it has promoted its chief financial officer to chief executive officer, and she will be the first female head of the company.

JD.com’s share price [HKG:9618] closed up 7.2 percent at HKD144.80 (USD18.47) today

Xu Ran is replacing Xu Lei who has resigned for personal reasons, the Beijing-based company said yesterday. As CEO, Xu Ran will be responsible for the group’s daily operations and development and will report directly to Chairman Richard Liu.

Although it is not known why Xu Lei resigned, the appointment of the CFO as CEO indicates that JD.com is keen to rein in costs, Pan Helin, co-director of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center at Zhejiang University’s International Business School, told Yicai Global.

JD.com might be contemplating changing its business model, Pan said. Running its self-operating e-commerce business plus logistics services is expensive, and this leads to more pricey goods and less profit for vendors. By contrast, other e-retailers act as third-party platforms and as a result they have fewer overheads.

Xu Ran accomplished a great deal in the short time that she was CFO at JD.com. Since taking up the position in 2020, she was the force behind JD.com’s secondary listing in Hong Kong as well as the spin-off listings of units JD Health International, JD Logistics, Harvest Jingdong Warehousing and Logistics Closed Infrastructure Securities Investment Fund. She also completed the acquisitions of Dada Nexus, Deppon Logistics and China Logistics Property Holdings.

Before joining the e-commerce firm in 2018, Xu Ran worked for UK professional services provider PricewaterhouseCoopers for nearly 20 years.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor