The9 Limited is announcing that it is appointing George Lai as its Chief Financial Officer. The previous CFO, Tony Tse, is resigning on July 3 due to personal reasons.

Jun Zhu, chairman and Chief Executive Officer at The9 Limited, stated that "we are very pleased to welcome George on board as our new Chief Financial Officer. George has extensive knowledge in US GAAP and solid background in dealing with public company issues, especially in the fast booming internet industries, and we believe he will fully utilize these knowledge and skill-sets to perform the important managerial role of Chief Financial Officer at The9."

George Lai has occupied several important positions while being employed by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. He worked in Hong Kong, New York and Beijing in positions such as audit manager and senior audit manager. There's some speculation that he was hired because of his experience in handling IPOs, which might suggest some serious plans regarding the company going public in the near future.

The9 Limited is important to the gaming world because of its operations involving mainland China. World of Warcraft is solely available in the Communist state through servers provided by The9, which also handles all matters related to localization, product support and other promotional activities. The company also handles operational duties for Ragnarok Online 2 and other Eastern developed MMOs. It's one of the most successful videogame companies based in Asia.

The headquarters of The9 are located in Shanghai. In a move that is unprecedented on the Asian MMO market, the company invested no less that 38 million dollars in a project called Audition 2, a music oriented MMO that The9 will handle in China. The aim is to create an MMO that appeals to both Eastern and Western audiences and that relies on a varied business model, involving but not being limited to micro-transactions and subscriptions.