ByteDance Creates New CFO Position As It Inches Toward IPO

TikTok Owner ByteDance has tapped Shou Zi Chew from the Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi as its first-ever Chief Financial Officer. The move signals that the Chinese tech company could be moving toward a highly-anticipated IPO.

Chew’s resignation from Xiaomi was first announced in a filing to the Hong Kong exchange and later made official on his Twitter where he said he would be leaving to join ByteDance in Singapore.

While at Xiaomi, Chew ran finances for the company for four years and was CFO when the company went public. He later was promoted to President of International, where he helped expand global operations. According to an internal memo obtained by Reuters, Chew became familiar with ByteDance while working at DST Investment Management, an early investor of the company. He also previously worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs.

His new CFO role will be the only other C-suite position for ByteDance’s global operations outside of CEO Zhang Yiming.

ByteDance has been contemplating listing some of its businesses, including its Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. According to Bloomberg, the company has quadrupled its revenue from $8 billion in 2018 to $35 billion last year. Earlier this year, ByteDance closed a fundraising round that valued it at $180 billion, making it the world’s most valuable financing round in the private market.