Who is Shou Zi Chew, the head of TikTok forced out of the shadows

“Hi everyone, I’m Shou, the CEO of TikTok”.

Shou Zi Chew he wears a dark hooded sweatshirt and a white t-shirt. He looks like a young influencer. And instead she is the CEO of one of the most influential (and discussed) social networks on the planet. For the first time since she has been driving TikTokZi Chew speaks directly to users of the platform. And they are not soft words: “Some politicians would like to ban TikTok [negli Usa] – he says while filming himself with his smartphone – if it happened, 150 million of you would be cut off”.

The clip, posted on the official TikTok account, has been viewed more than 8 million times. Zi Chew isn’t used to it. His videos usually don’t get more than a few thousand views. Among the comments on the video documenting a visit to the British Museum in London, a user’s question stands out: “How is it possible that the CEO of TikTok only has 18,000 followers?”.

Shou Zi Chew, 40, has headed TikTok since May 2021. As long as he could, remained in the shadows. Few, selected interviews. Two targeted speeches – in November and December 2022 – at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore and at the New York Times DealBook Summit. But he’s been forced out lately.

The TikTok CEO is engaged in a difficult undertaking: change the mind of the US government, which considers social media a threat to national security. President Biden would be ready to ban the app in the US if ByteDance Ltd., the Chinese company that controls TikTok, will not sell its shares in the company. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce let it be known that will oppose any forced sale.

In short, Zi Chew is in the midst of a war.

Right in the army, Zi Chew had the hardest experience of his life. Two and a half years of compulsory military service, culminating in a five-day survival course that took place in the jungles of Brunei. Zi Chew built himself a shelter, ate what nature provided and walked for miles and miles. And at one point he received a quail that was still alive: to be killed and skinned with his own hands before eating it.

Shou Zi Chew is born and raised in Singapore. His father worked in construction, his mother in accounting. The boy’s modest life was shaken, when he was 12 years old, give him high marks obtained following a state exam. A brilliant result that opened the doors of a very prestigious school to Zi Chew.

Zi Chew’s studies – after his years in the army – continued in London, where he attended University College and Harvard Business School. Then the first steps into the world of work: first in the group Goldman Sachsthen as an intern in Facebook and finally as a consultant in one of the most powerful investment companies in the world: the DSTGlobal.

Just while working at DST Global, Zi Chew met Zhang Yiming, the founder of TikTok. Their meeting took place in Beijing, in 2012, when only thirty people worked on the platform, crammed into an apartment in the university district. Their dream was to develop an app that would suggest content to users that suited their tastes, even if it came from people they didn’t know directly.

In that company – ByteDance Ltd. – DST Global immediately invested. AND the fates of Zi Chew and Zhang Yiming are inextricably linked. Nine years later, in fact, Zhang wanted Zi Chew first as Chief Financial Officer of TikTok, then – after only two months – as CEO. The same role had previously been covered by the Australian Vanessa Pappas and – for a very short time – from Kevin Mayera former top Disney executive.