Carol Huang
May 19, 2020

Ex-Disney executive joins ByteDance as COO

ByteDance took another step on its globalisation process by hiring Disney-veteran Kevin Mayer for operation.

Ex-Disney executive joins ByteDance as COO

ByteDance announced the appointment of Kevin Mayer, the ex-chairman of direct-to-consumer and international at Disney, as its chief operating officer, as well as CEO of TikTok.

ByteDance said Mayer will report to CEO Yiming Zhang. Mayer will be responsible for driving the global development of ByteDance, as well as overseeing corporate development, sales, marketing, public affairs, security, moderation and legal. In his role as COO, Mayer he lead music, gaming and India social media service Helo.

With Mayer's appointment, the company is bringing in experience with building a global business. "As one of the world's most accomplished entertainment executives, Kevin is incredibly well placed to take ByteDance's portfolio of products to the next level," Zhang commented.

Kevin Mayer


Alex Zhu, the current President of TikTok, will transition to ByteDance VP of product and strategy, which the company said are his areas of passion.

Kelly Zhang and Lidong Zhang will continue to lead the China business as CEO and chairman of ByteDance China, respectively. They manage ByteDance's short video apps in China as well as the business and operational team.

TikTok's national and regional leaders will remain in their roles with their current responsibilities, reporting to the new COO.

ByteDance is reported to have received a round of fundraising in March from Tiger Global Management, as investors are betting on the company's advertising business. According to Tiger Global's research team, ByteDance is expected to grab 19% of the China digital advertising market this year. Researcher Emarketer expects China's digital media ad spending to total $81 billion in 2020.

ByteDance is not shy about its ambition to expand. In April, it hired Nick Tran, ex-VP of brand and culture marketing from Hulu, to manage marketing for its North America business. The company also brought Ole Obermann, a 10-year veteran of Sony, on board in October 2019, and hired Vanessa Pappas, who managed user growth at YouTube for seven years.

(This article first appeared on CampaignAsia.com)

Source:
Campaign India

Related Articles

Just Published

2 days ago

No internet, no problem: AI dials up Bharat

Centerfruit’s tongue-twisting Voice AI campaign proves rural India doesn’t need screens to engage—just smart tech with local soul.

2 days ago

Magna forecasts a 7.7% increase in India’s adex for ...

With no elections or cricket highs, India’s INR 1371 billion adex proves that digital muscle, data depth, and media shifts are driving real momentum.

2 days ago

WPP global comms boss Chris Wade steps down

Former Ogilvy UK CEO Michael Frohlich will replace Wade, who leaves the holding company after 13 years.

2 days ago

Cookies crumble, privacy prevails: Marketing’s new ...

The era of lazy personalisation is over. Epsilon senior vice president for analytics believes that marketers must now trade third-party tracking for first-party trust, clean data, and cultural transparency—or risk fading into irrelevance.