Chinese B2C e-commerce group JD.com announced that Zhang Chen, former Yahoo global vice president and founder and president of the Yahoo Beijing R&D center, officially joined JD.com as senior vice president to lead the technical research and development systems of the company.

Zhang has nearly 20 years' development and management experience in the software industry. In his 18 years of service in Yahoo, Zhang led the development of Yahoo Messenger, which was once a top instant messaging tool in America and had millions of users around the world.

In addition, Zhang founded Yahoo Beijing R&D center and took the president role. This center was responsible for core research and development such as advertising and personalized products, mobile platforms and applications, and cloud computing. However, Yahoo recently announced that they would shut down the center.

JD's research and development unit has established institutes in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Shenyang, and its technical team has over 4,000 employees. This R&D unit is responsible for the establishment and maintenance of information systems, covering logistics, information flow, and capital flow. It also developed big date applications to cover marketing, supply chain and logistics systems.