TikTok appointed Shou Zi Chew, a Singaporean nationwide, as the brand new Chief Executive Officer of the recent video-sharing platform, the corporate mentioned on Friday. Chew, based mostly in Singapore, will retain shut ties to TikTok’s Chinese proprietor ByteDance the place he’ll stay Chief Financial Officer.
“We will continue building out our strong and deep management team as we set the stage for the next phase of TikTok’s success,” Chew mentioned in a press release.
TikTok’s interim head Vanessa Pappas, who led the corporate on an interim foundation after the abrupt departure of its CEO final 12 months, Kevin Mayer previously of Walt Disney, would be the new chief working officer.
“Shou brings deep knowledge of the company and industry, having led a team that was among our earliest investors … He will add depth to the team, focusing on areas including corporate governance and long-term business initiatives,” mentioned Yiming Zhang, Founder and CEO of ByteDance.
Under scrutiny
Over the previous few years as its app gained reputation within the United States, TikTok has sought to distance itself from Beijing after an inquiry into the security of the private information it handles by a nationwide safety panel, the Committee on Foreign Investment within the United States (CFIUS), Reuters reported in 2019.
“If the goal is to separate TikTok from ByteDance control, appointing the current ByteDance CFO to concurrently serve as the TikTok CEO seems to run counter to that,” mentioned Steven Klemencic, consulting agency BRG’s CFIUS chief and former intelligence officer who labored in direct assist of CFIUS.
Nova Daly, senior advisor at legislation agency Wiley Rein, who ran the CFIUS course of on the US Treasury Department, mentioned congress members could object to the appointment. “I think the push back will be political and from the Hill,” he mentioned.
However, some CFIUS legal professionals performed down any main affect this restructuring may have on the CFIUS assessment, noting that TikTok remains to be firmly managed by ByteDance.
Former US president Donald Trump’s administration, which alleged that TikTok posed a nationwide safety risk as China’s authorities may be capable to get hold of private information of the app’s US customers. TikTok denied the accusations.
A US plan to promote TikTok’s American operations to a US consortium has languished since late final 12 months, as ByteDance launched profitable authorized challenges.
CFIUS has been reviewing the deal to promote TikTok US to a consortium together with Oracle Corp and Walmart Inc., in response to a supply accustomed to the matter. Details of the discussions couldn’t be discovered.
TikTok has made strikes to shift energy from Beijing, the place ByteDance is predicated, to the United States, certainly one of its most essential and quick rising markets.
Alex Zhu, former TikTok head, a Chinese nationwide, had left the position as the corporate confronted scrutiny over information privateness in 2020. Zhu is co-founder of the Musical.ly app that ByteDance acquired for as much as $1 billion and re-branded as TikTok.
TikTok poached Disney’s Mayer as CEO final 12 months. Mayer resigned shortly after his tenure with the Chinese firm on the peak of the nationwide safety assessment.
Last 12 months, TikTok ramped up its engineering and moderation group in Mountain View, California, making an attempt to base these data-sensitive positions exterior of China. The firm had beforehand mentioned the private information of tens of millions of US customers are saved in Virginia, with backups in Singapore.
Chew attended faculty in London, and has an MBA from Harvard. From 2015 to 2020, he served as Xiaomi’s chief monetary officer, and ran its worldwide enterprise for a 12 months.
© Thomson Reuters 2021
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