Ant International appoints US basketball star Sabrina Ionescu as global ambassador

Ant International, the Singapore-based affiliate of Chinese fintech giant Ant Group, has named four-time WNBA All-Star Sabrina Ionescu as its new global brand ambassador—its first from North America.

For Ant International, the partnership reinforces the company’s broader ambition to expand access to digital financial services and deepen its positioning across key international markets."Sabrina embodies the spirit of perseverance and the passion for excellence that is driving young talents and small businesses around the world to uplift their communities," said Douglas Feagin, President of Ant International.

A four-time WNBA All-Star, Olympic gold medalist, 2024 World Champion, and 2021 WNBA Rookie of the Year, Ionescu plays for the New York Liberty. 

"I’m drawn to Ant International’s work to open up access to financial tools and opportunities for everyone," said Sabrina Ionescu. "We share an aligned vision for equitable access, and their commitment to supporting small businesses and marginalised communities mirrors the work I do with youth through sports."

Celebrity and KOL endorsements are core to Ant's domestic and international marketing strategies. Last year, Chinese-American actor Liu Yifei was named the first global brand ambassador for Ant Insurance. 

The brand-building push comes amid Alibaba-affiliated companies' overall push into AI. Recently, the Ant Group introduced a multimodal AI assistant LingGuang, designed for product innovation to generate interactive webpages with images, text, 3D models, animations, maps and audiovisual outputs, rather than conventional chat responses.