A Leadership Crisis With No Plan B

Chinas JD.com, the runner-up to Alibaba, basically cant function without its founder

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Richard Liu, the billionaire founder of JD.com Inc., has spent years trying to raise his profile outside China. He’s hobnobbed at Davos and in Aspen, spoken at the World Retail Congress in Madrid, and had exhibits in a New York gallery stuffed with JD-branded swag. Now, Liu is finally getting some international attention—but not the good kind.

On Sept. 4, Minneapolis police reported they’d arrested Liu the previous weekend on suspicion of rape. The JD chief executive officer and chairman, whose mug shot ricocheted around the internet, was allowed to return to Beijing. His lawyers say no charges will be filed, but the police haven’t closed the case. And given his extra ordinary control over JD, China’s No. 2 online retailer after Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., his problems are very much those of his employees, customers, and shareholders, too.