Shou Zi Chew is the CEO of TikTok. He was the former CFO of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. He is in charge of the app’s government and public relations, cybersecurity, and legal compliance issues. His effort has helped TikTok achieve one billion downloads globally, inadvertently helping launch the career of many individuals.
After working for Goldman Sachs for two years, he joined the then-young investment business DST Global before taking the helm of the Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi.
Early Life
He graduated from University College London with a bachelor’s in economics before enrolling in Harvard Business School to obtain an MBA in 2010. Chew spent two years as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs after graduating from UCL. Chew made the decision to continue his education in 2008.
He was awarded a fellowship to study at the esteemed Harvard Business School. It was a wise decision for him to continue his study. His two-year MBA program at Harvard, which placed a strong emphasis on real-world skills, gave him the expertise he needed to achieve his goals.
Success Story
Chew’s education at UCL served as a launching pad for his career at the prominent investment bank Goldman Sachs. From that point on, the TikTok CEO simply kept moving up the corporate ladder. Chew claimed in a post on the Harvard Alumni website that he worked for a company that “was called Facebook” while he was a student.
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Shou Zi Chew had interned at Facebook which was just a startup at that time. He also spent five years working for the Russian IT tycoon Yuri Milner’s investment company DST. While he was working there in 2013, he managed a team that later became an early investor in Bytedance.
In 2015, he was appointed CFO of the Chinese smartphone juggernaut, Xiaomi. Shou Zi Chew assisted in securing significant funding and guided the business throughout its 2018 IPO, which turned out to be one of the biggest tech IPOs in the country. He was also named the president of Xiaomi’s global business in 2019.
He left the CFO position in April 2020, but he continued to serve as the company’s International Business President until March 2021, after which point he completely severed ties with Xiamoi. Shou Zi Chew acknowledged having a history with ByteDance dating back to when he assisted in making investments in the company about ten years ago.
Chew was hired as the CFO of ByteDance in March 2021 After two months, TikTok named Chew as the CEO of the company citing his strong grasp of the business and the industry. Kevin Mayer, the previous CEO, had left the organization just after three months of serving the role due to criticism from politicians regarding the platform’s security issues.
Chew left his position with ByteDance in the latter part of last year to concentrate on TikTok. With more than 1.2 billion monthly active users, TikTok has continued on its path of explosive growth under Chew’s direction.
I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.