Advertisement
Advertisement
Xiaomi’s international business head quits to join ByteDance as its CFO in Singapore
- Chew Shou Zi is moving to ByteDance after six years in Xiaomi
- He will serve as chief financial officer of ByteDance in Singapore, where the tech unicorn’s regional head office is located
Smartphone giant Xiaomi Corp’s international business president, Chew Shou Zi, announced his resignation on Wednesday, as he joins TikTok owner ByteDance to serve as its new chief financial officer, based in his home country of Singapore.
A ByteDance spokeswoman confirmed Chew’s new job on Wednesday.
Earlier on the same day, Xiaomi said Chew resigned from the company because of family reasons, after the company reported its fourth-quarter financial results.
“After being away from home for 18 years, I am going to be based in my home country, Singapore,” Chew wrote in a post on microblogging platform Weibo, while thanking Xiaomi co-founder and chief executive Lei Jun. “I am fully confident about the future of Xiaomi and I have never doubted this: this company will become one of the greatest.”
Lei responded with his own post on Weibo, calling Chew “my brother who has been fighting alongside me for six years” and wishing him “unlimited excitement” in his future.
Chew’s move to ByteDance comes at a time when the tech unicorn is expanding its presence in Singapore, the site of the company’s regional headquarters. Beijing-based ByteDance is adding hundreds of jobs in the city state, where Zhu Wenjia – the former chief of its Chinese news aggregator platform, Jinri Toutiao – will relocate as TikTok’s head of global research and development.
Chew received his bachelor’s degree in economics from University College London and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Before joining Xiaomi in 2015, Chew worked for Goldman Sachs in London and later joined internet investment firm DST, where he was actively involved in Chinese tech investments, including in Xiaomi, JD.com, Alibaba Group Holding and Didi Chuxing. Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post.
He also held 50 million Xiaomi shares as of the first quarter this year, according to company data. That is worth about HK$1.3 billion (US$167 million), based on the company’s share price on Wednesday.
Post