Meet TikTok’s Singaporean CEO, Chew Shou Zi, the Harvard graduate who even helped start Facebook

Aug 18 , 2021

Chew Shou Zi joined TikTok parent ByteDance in March. Photo: Bloomberg

Chew was CFO of Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi before joining TikTok’s parent company ByteDance under the same title

Chew’s predecessor at the video-sharing app, Kevin Mayer, left after just three months – despite resigning from Disney for the position

TikTok, whose massively popular video-sharing platform is used by millions across the world, got a new chief executive in May, eight months after Kevin Mayer walked out.

The logo of the social media video-sharing app TikTok displayed on a tablet screen in Paris, in November 2019. Photo: AFP

So who is he?

Chew Shou Zi is 39 years old, from Singapore, and has been speculated to maybe lead TikTok’s parent company to a blockbuster IPO.

TikTok and Chew did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this story.

Here’s a rundown on TikTok’s head honcho.

Chew worked for Facebook when it was still a start-up

A smartphone screen displays the logo of Facebook on a Facebook website background in Arlington, Virginia, on June 16. Photo: AFP

He earned his bachelor’s degree in economics at the University College London before heading to Harvard Business School for his MBA in 2010.

While a student there, Chew worked for a start-up that “was called Facebook”, he said in a post on Harvard’s Alumni website. Facebook went public in mid-2012.

Chew met his now-wife, Vivian Kao, via email when they were both students at Harvard. They are “a couple who often finish each other’s sentences”, according to the school’s alumni page, and have two kids.

Chew was CFO of Xiaomi before joining ByteDance

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