On 10 September, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba's globally known founder Jack Ma officially retires as the company's chairman. The retirement day coincides with his birthday.

Ma, who turned 55 years old on Tuesday, leaves the daunting task of heading the multinational conglomerate on the shoulders of his hand-picked successor Daniel Zhang.

Jack Ma founded Alibaba in 1999 as an e-commerce company and expanded it into a conglomerate that runs businesses ranging from logistics, food delivery to cloud computing. The Alibaba Group is presently worth $460 billion.

Jack Ma's charismatic leadership made him one of the most recognised Chinese entrepreneurs. According to Forbes magazine, he is China's richest man with a networth of $38.4 billion.

He announced his retirement last year to spend more time on his philanthropy and educational activities.

A farewell party will be held for him on Tuesday at the 80,000-capacity Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center stadium, which will include celebrity performance and his speech, which investors will pay keen attention to know how involved he will be in the company's management after he retires.

He is set to remain a member of Alibaba's partnership, a corporate governing group of 38 individuals that is separate from the board of directors.