ByteDance’s Chew Steps Down as CFO, Remains TikTok CEO

Zheping Huang

02 Nov 2021, 08:31 PM IST

(Bloomberg) -- ByteDance Ltd. said Shouzi Chew will step down as chief financial officer of the Chinese tech giant to focus on running its hit social media business TikTok, part of a broader restructuring of the group’s business.

ByteDance is also setting up six business units as part of the restructuring, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg News. Chew will remain TikTok’s chief executive officer and oversee the development of extended businesses like global e-commerce, while ByteDance’s Douyin group will focus on developing its content businesses in China and include other apps like news aggregator Toutiao and video platform Xigua.

No replacement CFO was announced in the internal letter, which said that the finance department will report directly to Liang Rubo, billionaire founder Zhang Yiming’s successor as CEO of the group. A representative from ByteDance confirmed the details of the memo.

Chew’s appointment as CFO earlier this year had been widely seen as a sign that ByteDance’s initial public offering was imminent, though the company has repeatedly said it’s not ready to go public. China’s tech giants have come under intense scrutiny over the past year, with Beijing reining in its largest private corporations in areas from antitrust to online entertainment.

ByteDance’s Dali Education unit will pivot to focus on vocational training for adults and offer artificial intelligence-powered learning, smart hardware and campus collaboration. The company had laid off at least hundreds of employees from its after-school tutoring business after Beijing in July enacted its harshest-ever curbs on the industry, Bloomberg News previously reported.

The remaining units will focus on enterprise collaboration and management services, game development and publishing, as well as building a platform that provides tech services for corporations.

ByteDance’s restructuring signals a major push into enterprise software, a hotly contested area after China’s crackdown on consumer internet. The newly formed Lark unit -- named after its Slack-style work app -- will offer office collaboration tools like video conferencing and contract management. Its cloud arm -- the backbone of Douyin and TikTok’s algorithm recommendations -- will become more open to external enterprise clients.