Exclusive | TikTok’s owner ByteDance to add four directors to expand its board to nine amid growing US scrutiny over the app’s Beijing link
- ByteDance’s current board represents four major investors in the company, as well as chief executive Liang Rubo, who took over from founder Zhang Yiming last year
- With more than 1 billion TikTok users globally, the new board will face a challenging task in dealing with scrutiny from regulators, advertisers and consumers
ByteDance, the Chinese owner of short video hit TikTok, will add four seats to its board, increasing the number of directors to nine, according to two people familiar with the matter, a move that comes as the company faces an increasingly complex global environment.
The proposal to increase the board size received approval at its extraordinary shareholders meeting on Tuesday, paving the way for the biggest change to its board since the company was formed, according to one of the two sources, who both declined to be named as they are not authorised to speak to the media.
It is not known whether any of the existing board members will be replaced. The nationalities of the new board members are also unknown.
A ByteDance representative said on Wednesday that the company proposed to change “the maximum size of the board” at the shareholder meeting, without further elaborating.
For now, ByteDance’s board consists of Bill Ford of General Atlantic, Arthur Dantchik of Susquehanna International Group, Coatue Management’s Philippe Laffont, Neil Shen from Sequoia China, and ByteDance chief executive Liang Rubo, according to a letter TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew gave US lawmakers in June on TikTok’s alleged links to the Chinese government.