According to a statement released by ByteDance, Zhang will be promoted to a ‘key strategic’ role at the end of the year.
According to the firm, Zhang Yiming, the founder of TikTok owner ByteDance, informed staff in a memo that he will step down as CEO and be succeeded by Liang Rubo, the business’s human resource manager.
The move, which was first reported by Reuters, is ByteDance’s greatest corporate shake-up since its inception in 2012. The company developed to become China’s main social media force, and TikTok, a popular short-video app among teens, became a global sensation.
According to a statement released by ByteDance, Zhang will be promoted to “key strategy” at the end of the year.
In the memo, Zhang said that Liang, who was most recently the head of human resources at ByteDance, had been a “invaluable collaborator” in growing the company’s technology and hiring and managing personnel. He also stated that during the following six months, he would work with Liang to guarantee a smooth transition.
Rather than managing people, I’m more interested in researching organisational and market concepts and utilising these ideas to further reduce management effort,” Zhang says.
After months of consideration, Zhang felt that transitioning out of the CEO job would allow him to have a larger impact on ByteDance’s longer-term ambitions.
“To be honest, I lack some of the qualities that make a good manager.”
“I’m not very gregarious, either,” he noted, “preferring solitary pursuits like being online, reading, listening to music, and pondering what might be possible.”
Zhang’s decision comes less than a month after ByteDance nominated Shouzi Chew, its chief financial officer, as TikTok’s CEO.
After the US voiced national security concerns about the safety of the personal data it manages, TikTok has moved to distance itself from Beijing. After the US voiced national security concerns about the safety of the personal data it manages, TikTok has moved to distance itself from Beijing.
The government of former US President Donald Trump attempted to compel ByteDance to relinquish control of the app. After ByteDance filed successful legal objections, a deal to sell TikTok’s American business to a consortium that included Oracle Corp and Walmart Inc fell through.
ByteDance, which has a global workforce of more than 100,000 employees, had been preparing for its much-anticipated initial public offering (IPO) earlier this year, but had to postpone it in April.
Zhang appointed Chairman Zhang Lidong and Chief Executive Kelly Zhang at ByteDance’s China unit last year, which was the company’s prior large organisational shakeup.
