In a post on Alibabas intranet, the companys chief executive, Daniel Zhang, said he was shocked, angry and ashamed about the incident. He said the supervisors involved owed the employee an apology for not handling it quickly, according to a screenshot of the post viewed by The New York Times.
This is not just an isolated event, Mr. Zhang wrote. Starting from me, the managers, human resources, each of us in Ali must be deeply stirred by this, reflect and take action.
Alibaba had previously been accused of failing to address gender discrimination. In 2018, Human Rights Watch, a nongovernmental organization based in New York, said that Alibaba, along with the Chinese tech companies Baidu and Tencent, had repeatedly published recruitment ads boasting about the beautiful girls working for the companies.
Elsie Chen contributed research.
