ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming to step down as CEO
20 May, 2021
Zhang Yiming, founder of TikTok owner ByteDance, told employees of the Chinese technology giant found in a memo that he will step down as leader and become succeeded by human source chief Liang Rubo, the business disclosed on Thursday (May 20).
The move, first reported by Reuters, represents the biggest corporate shake-up at ByteDance since its launch in 2012. The business started to be a dominant social media drive in China and switched TikTok, a short-video iPhone app popular with teenagers, right into a global sensation.
Zhang will proceed to a "key approach" position by the end of this year, ByteDance said found in a statement.
Zhang wrote in the memo that Liang, whose most recent role at ByteDance was head of recruiting, has been "an invaluable partner", advancing the business's technology and hiring and managing people. He added that he'd use Liang over another six months to ensure a smooth transition.
Zhang wrote found in the memo that he concluded after almost a year of deliberation that he'd have a greater effect on ByteDance's longer-term initiatives if he transitioned from the CEO role.
"The simple truth is, I lack a number of the skills that produce an excellent manager. I'm more considering analyzing organizational and marketplace principles, and leveraging these theories to help expand reduce management work, instead of actually managing persons," Zhang wrote.
"Similarly, I'm not so social, preferring solitary pursuits like being online, studying, listening to music, and contemplating what could be possible," he added.
Zhang's decision to stage down comes less than a month after ByteDance known as its chief financial officer Chew Shouzi due to CEO of TikTok.
TikTok has sought to distance itself from Beijing following the USA raised national security considerations over the safeness of the personal data it handles.
Former US president Donald Trump's administration sought to drive ByteDance to divest control of the app. The US intend to promote TikTok's American businesses to a consortium that included Oracle and Walmart languished, even so, after ByteDance launched successful legal challenges.
ByteDance, which currently employs more than 100,000 persons globally, had been making preparations because of its much-anticipated preliminary publish offering (IPO) before this year but halted the IPO ideas in April.
The nine-year-old company's previous big organisational shakeup occurred last year, when Zhang appointed Chairman Zhang Lidong and LEADER Kelly Zhang at ByteDance's China business.
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