Show Tzu Chu: Who is this mysterious TikTok leader who will face the US Congress?

From trainee to facebook to executive director tik takShow Zi Chu is an unknown Singaporean social media manager who will defend her this Thursday before a US congressional committee that is threatening to ban the app over its possible ties to the Chinese regime.

Show Tzu Chu, 40, is under the most intense scrutiny after he was named CEO of the popular video platform in May 2021, with Vanessa Pappas, COO, still serving as its face. tik tak.

The Singaporean will have to convince the committee on energy and trade USA congress. argument that the platform has defended profusely: that tik tak Works independently of its owner, Chinese bytedancewhen out FBI Even the US Legislature has expressed concern about the possibility of it being used by Beijing for espionage work.

TikTok and its leader: it used to go through Facebook and Xiaomi

“TikTok is led by the global CEO Show Zi Chu, a Singaporean living in Singapore,” he said. tik tak in a written address to the US Congress last June.

Despite the Singaporean’s inexperience in this kind of public struggle, he is more than trained in the shadows to take on the difficult task of presenting himself to the West as the leader of an autonomous world platform while meeting the demands bytedance from Beijing.

Show Zi Chu was born and educated in Singapore, a country that is a bridge between West and East, known as Asia’s “Switzerland”. to fit into both Chinese companies and Western multinational corporations.

Chu, according to the island newspaper this Thursday Straits Timesstudied at an elite school in the Asian city-state of Hwa Chong (whose educational program is taught in Chinese), and after completing his compulsory military service on the island, received a diploma in economics from University College London (UCL).

While still in London, he worked for a season at Goldman Sachs and later entered Harvard Business School, where he met his future wife, Vivian Kao, a Taiwanese American with whom he has two children and who runs an investment fund. in Singapore.

After earning an MBA from Harvard, he was hired by facebook as an intern in the US and later joined DST Global, a joint venture founded by Silicon Valley billionaire Yuri Milner, says Straits Times.

It was at DST Global that he led a team that invested in the origins of Byte dance in 2013, although he traveled through China before formalizing relations with them xiaomibecoming its CFO in 2015 and President of International Business in 2019.

Left in March 2021 xiaomi To tik takfirst as chief financial officer (CFO), and only two months later as chief executive officer, succeeding the American Kevin Mayer.

Founder bytedanceZhang Yiming then praised Chu, assuring that he brought “in-depth knowledge of the company and the industry,” although his real impact on platform decisions that Zhang from China could make directly is doubtful, according to a report published in September. New York Times.

Chu was in no hurry to get involved in tik tak, at least personally: it was not until February 2022 that he created his own account on the platform and assured that he did not allow his children, whose age is unknown, to use it. “They are too young for that,” he said. New York Times last year.

EFE