It leads the world’s most popular app and yet for the vast majority Shou Zi Chew is completely unknown. That situation began to change on Thursday when common sense began to change. CEO TikTok He has tried to defend the reputation of a platform that the US could ban because of its alleged ties to China, in front of dozens of Democratic and Republican congressmen. After being under the spotlight for five hours, he couldn’t convince anyone.
Until now, COO Vanessa Pappas has been the face of TikTok. She is someone who has attended public events in the industry and has been questioned before in Congress. Meanwhile, Chew flew it from Singapore, thousands of miles from Washington. The company used this claim to: Denying allegations about ties to Beijing. It’s unclear how much decision-making power Chew actually has, though. A dozen former executives and employees of the company told The New York Times that this was limited and The person responsible is actually Zhang Yiming, the billionaire founder of Chinese giant ByteDance.Owner of TikTok.
elite formation
Chew was born 40 years ago, in 1983, in Singapore. She was educated at the prestigious Hwa Chong School, an elite school where she became fluent in Mandarin Chinese and English. Like most men in the country, he did his military service and was able to rise to the rank of officer. He then moved to Europe to study economics at University College London.
Despite being known for his role as a tech executive, this enigmatic businessman got a job for two years at American Goldman Sachs, one of the world’s largest investment banks (which is also a ByteDance shareholder). His formative journey also took him across the Atlantic. Inside United States of Americadid his internship Facebook Mark Zuckerberg’s project was still in its infancy and he later earned an MBA from the renowned Harvard Business School.
Investor in Chinese companies
His experience as an investor at Goldman Sachs led him to sign up as a partner at DST Global, an influential venture capital firm founded in Hong Kong by Russian-Israeli Yuri Milner, one of Silicon Valley’s largest investors. In 2017, the international journalism research ‘Paradise Papers’ was published by this firm. middleman Kremlin Investing in American social networks. DTS has built a multi-billion dollar empire by investing in promising internet companies like Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, WhatsApp or Airbnb. For five years, Chew has played a key role in growing this business by investing in major Chinese companies such as Alibaba, Xiaomi or ByteDance.
Blessings are gathered in high circles of power. In 2015, Chew signed on as the CFO of Xiaomi. The tech company, known for popularizing its mobile phone range, said at the time that the Singaporean investor “recognized Xiaomi’s value early on”. Chew was also the company’s head of international trade and guided him through its 2018 IPO.
Six years later, in March 2021, Chew joined the parent company that owns TikTok, in which he also invested as CFO. However, two months later, the platform’s CEO, Kevin Mayer, abruptly resigned following increasing pressure from the Donald Trump administration to divest ByteDance’s US business. Chew took over the company, hoping to navigate a company. ocean of geopolitical turmoil.
Two years later, Chew faces his toughest challenge yet. This Thursday didn’t seem to convince Washington that TikTok was a safe space. However, the impression is very different when taken into account. hundreds of support messages You get it from many users. If officials cannot be seduced, the strategy includes an aggressive public relations campaign that mobilizes citizens. In just one day, Chew’s newly opened account on the platform has grown from 18,000 followers to almost 94,000. Still, this maneuver may not be enough. TikTok is up to his neck in water.