Chew Shou Zi

CEO, TikTok

 

The tech giant's CEO has grand plans for TikTok

Chew Shou Zi is TikTok’s 39-year-old CEO. The Singaporean assumed the role in May 2021, and has been credited to propelling the company to grand new heights, overseeing matters related to cybersecurity, legal compliance and government and public relations for the platform. He also joined TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, as CFO in March 2021—the first person to fill that role at the media giant—but has since stepped down from that role to focus on growing TikTok and leading it to what the industry is expecting to be a blockbuster IPO.

Despite the video-sharing app launching in 2016, it wasn’t till a few years later did TikTok really blow up, picking up over 500 million users within a span of five months in 2020—mostly due to people isolating during the pandemic. Under Chew’s leadership, TikTok has surpassed one billion downloads worldwide.

One of ByteDance’s early investors was DST Investment Management, an investment firm where Chew worked in 2013, where he led the team involved in this social media venture. Prior to entering the world of tech, the Hwa Chong alumnus earned his Bachelor’s degree in Economics at the University College London before getting his MBA at Harvard Business School in 2010. He worked at Goldman Sachs for two years as an investment banker fresh out of school, and was appointed the CFO of Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi in 2015.

Chew is married to Vivian Kao, with whom he has two children.

Impacted Industries


Did You Know?


As a student, he worked at a start-up, then humbly known as Facebook.

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