Chinese technology company ByteDance has appointed its Chief Financial Officer Shouzi Chew to assume the role as TikTok CEO while still holding the CFO role at its parent organization, the company announced Friday.
Precisely almost eight months after former TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer quit in the midst of a full-court press from the Trump administration against the Chinese-owned social media giant, TikTok finally has a new permanent leader.
Vanessa Pappas, who was serving as interim CEO, will take the role of COO going forward.
“The leadership team of Shou and Vanessa sets the stage for sustained growth,” ByteDance CEO Yiming Zhang said in a press release.
“Shou brings deep knowledge of the company and industry, having led a team that was among our earliest investors, and having worked in the technology sector for a decade. He will add depth to the team, focusing on areas including corporate governance and long-term business initiatives,” the CEO added.
With more than 58 million installs in March, TikTok became the most downloaded non-gaming app worldwide.
TikTok was followed by Facebook which became the second most installed non-gaming app worldwide for March with more than 56 million installs, showed the data from app analytics firm Sensor Tower.
The countries with the largest number of TikTok installs were from Douyin in China at 11 per cent, followed by the US at 10 per cent.