The tech giant's CEO has grand plans for TikTok-YiwuSell.com

The tech giant’s CEO has grand plans for TikTok

Popular social media app TikTok has been the talk of the town, especially after the intense grilling of chief executive officer Chew Shou Zi’s Singaporean citizenship during the latest Senate hearing. Taking over former Disney executive Kevin Mayer in 2020, Singapore-born Chew assumed the role in 2021.

The Singaporean is in the spotlight once again as he will serve as one of the honorary chairs of the 2024 Met Gala, happening on May 6 this year in New York City at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of the biggest fashion events held each year, the glamorous event will see both celebrities and fashion designers walk the red carpet in show-stopping outfits.

Considering how Chew was born and bred in Singapore, many have been curious about his background and how he became chief executive of one of the most popular social media apps in the world.

Below, we list everything to know about him so far.

In case you missed it: 5 quotes by TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi at his latest US Senate appearance

1. He served his National Service

During the last Senate hearing, Chew shared that he served his National Service for two and a half years as a commissioned officer in the Singapore Armed Forces.

Chew Shou Zi is TikTok’s 39-year-old CEO. The Singaporean assumed the role in May 2021, and has been credited to propelling the company to grand new heights, overseeing matters related to cybersecurity, legal compliance and government and public relations for the platform. He also joined TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, as CFO in March 2021—the first person to fill that role at the media giant—but has since stepped down from that role to focus on growing TikTok and leading it to what the industry is expecting to be a blockbuster IPO.

Despite the video-sharing app launching in 2016, it wasn’t till a few years later did TikTok really blow up, picking up over 500 million users within a span of five months in 2020—mostly due to people isolating during the pandemic. Under Chew’s leadership, TikTok has surpassed one billion downloads worldwide.

One of ByteDance’s early investors was DST Investment Management, an investment firm where Chew worked in 2013, where he led the team involved in this social media venture. Prior to entering the world of tech, the Hwa Chong alumnus earned his Bachelor’s degree in Economics at the University College London before getting his MBA at Harvard Business School in 2010. He worked at Goldman Sachs for two years as an investment banker fresh out of school, and was appointed the CFO of Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi in 2015.

Chew is married to Vivian Kao, with whom he has two children.

2. His impressive educational background

After graduating from Hwa Chong Institution in Singapore in 1999, Chew went on to study at University College London where he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in economics in 2006. He went on to receive his Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Harvard Business School in 2010.

Over the years, Chew and his wife Vivian Kao have given back to the Harvard community significantly. The pair have helped out at class fundraising efforts and have joined the Harvard Business School alumni board and the school’s fund investors society. The latter recognises leadership donations to the Harvard Business School fund.

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3. He met his wife at Harvard Business School

Chew met Kao over email while they were both studying at Harvard Business School in 2008 and began dating shortly after. Kao is an American of Taiwanese descent and, similar to Chew, received her MBA from Harvard Business School in 2010. They are currently married with two children.

4. He was an intern at Facebook

Chew’s first venture into the tech sector was during his MBA at Harvard Business School. While studying for his degree, Chew was also an intern at Facebook. At that time, the social media platform was still a start-up and would later go public in 2012.

5. He attended the Met Gala in 2022

ABOVE Chew Shou Zi and Vivian Kao attend The 2022 Met Gala (Photo: Getty Images)

The Met Gala 2022, themed In America: An Anthology of Fashion, saw some of the biggest celebrities and industry leaders walking down the red carpet while donning glamorous outfits. Among the attendees were Chew and his wife, Vivian.

As honorary chair this year, many are already making guesses on what Chew will wear on the red carpet.

6. He acquired a Good Class Bungalow

Good Class Bungalows (GCB) are one of the most exclusive properties available in Singapore; in 2021, it was reported that Chew purchased one at SG$86 million. According to Business Times, Chew’s property is located in Queen Astrid Park, one of Singapore’s most affluent districts. The property is also said to sit on an area of over 30,000 sq ft.

7. He was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs

ABOVE Chew Shou Zi (Photo: Getty Images)

One of Chew’s first full-time jobs was as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, a leading global financial institution that does investment management, consumer banking and more.

Chew was there from 2006 to 2008 before moving on to DST Investment Management where he was a partner from 2010 to 2015.

8. He used to be in the senior management team at Xiaomi Technology

ABOVE In 2015, Chew joined Xiaomi as chief financial officer (Photo: Getty Images)

Chew joined Xiaomi as their chief financial officer in 2015 where he brought unique investment insights and financial skills to the table.

Xiaomi is one of the biggest Chinese smartphone companies and Chew spent five years there. He held his role as chief financial officer till he moved into being the president of the company’s international business.

During his time, he was able to secure financing from investors and played a huge part in seeing Xiaomi get listed.

9. Chew started out as the chief financial officer of ByteDance

ABOVE The Bytedance logo is seen at the company’s headquarters on December 7, 2020 in Beijing, China. Photo: Zhu Hanxiao/VCG via Getty Images

In 2017, Bytedance acquired the popular short-video platform, Musical.ly. The following year, it merged Musical.ly with TikTok to launch it into the global sensation it is today.

Later in March 2021, ByteDance—the parent company of TikTok—hired Chew as its new chief financial officer.

Chew remained in this position for only three months before he was promoted to chief executive of TikTok, a role which he continues to hold today.

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TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified Thursday at a congressional hearing over concerns about user data collected by the popular video-sharing app and potential Chinese spying.

Under his helm, TikTok reached 150 million users in the U.S., the majority of them teens and young adults who are attracted to the app’s simple interface and addictive algorithm that serves up short videos on just about any imaginable topic.

Lawmakers have said they’re worried about American data falling into the hands of the Chinese government and claim it threatens national security and user privacy and could be used to promote pro-Beijing propaganda and misinformation.

Chew attempted to persuade lawmakers not to pursue a ban on the app or force Chinese parent company ByteDance to give up its ownership stake, testifying that TikTok prioritizes the safety of young users. He says the company plans to store all U.S. user data on servers maintained and owned by the software giant Oracle.

Here’s a closer look at Chew:

WHAT IS HIS BACKGROUND?

Chew, 40, is a native of Singapore, where he lives with his wife, Vivian Kao, and their two children. He graduated in 2006 from University College London and worked for two years at Goldman Sachs before moving to the U.S. to pursue a master’s degree at Harvard Business School. Chew had a two-year internship with Facebook.

After earning his MBA, he became a partner at venture capital firm DST Global, where he worked for five years and helped facilitate investment in the company that became ByteDance. He then worked for five years at Xiaomi, a Chinese smartphone company, before being appointed TikTok CEO in 2021, replacing Kevin Mayer, a former Disney executive. Chew reports to ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo.

WHAT’S HIS REPUTATION?

The U.S. public knows relatively little about Chew compared with Silicon Valley social media giants such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, said Brooke Erin Duffy, who studies social media platforms as an associate professor of communications at Cornell University.

“Chew has been in the background on public discourse until now, so he doesn’t have the same reputation we would associate with the Silicon Valley set, especially Zuckerberg,” Duffy said.

Most Americans likely first heard of Chew when he released a video this week speaking directly to TikTok’s U.S. users, she said, “so he doesn’t have the same reputation as someone we know, and (we) don’t have sense of who he is.”

But Chew is well-respected within the U.S. and China tech communities and was considered a good fit for TikTok because of his background in investment banking and his time at Facebook and DST Global, said Dan Ives, managing director of New York-based Wedbush Securities.

“He gained a lot of respect just by taking that high risk, in-the-hot seat role at TikTok,” Ives said, adding that the company likely thought he was the right person to ease tensions with U.S. lawmakers.

HOW DID HE DO IN HIS TESTIMONY?

Chew’s decision to emphasize TikTok’s reach in the U.S. might have backfired, and “actually strengthened U.S. lawmakers’ argument that TikTok poses a threat to both national security and young people,” said Jasmine Enberg, a social media analyst at Insider Intelligence.

Enberg said there was little Chew could say to convince lawmakers that TikTok is not monitored or influenced in some way by the Chinese government.

Ives said Chew’s testimony was always going to be fraught, but his lack of concrete answers about data access and security was “a disaster” and likely set the stage for a ban.

“It was a perfect storm and lawmakers were ready,” Ives said.

But Shelly Palmer, a professor of advanced media at Syracuse University who studies social network business models, said Chew did the best he could given the grilling he received from lawmakers who “in my opinion were not actually listening” but instead were grandstanding.

“I don’t think he has the ability, because of who he is and what he does, to be satisfying to this audience,” said Palmer, adding that he believed Chew’s answers were not unlike those given by CEOs from U.S.-based social media companies who have been questioned in the past about privacy.

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