Kelly Zhang

Washington and other Western governments are debating TikTok bans, but the financial impact of such measures on app parent ByteDance would only go so far. ByteDance, the world’s most valuable startup at $220 billion, generates the bulk of its business from China, a market run by ByteDance China CEO Kelly Zhang. She’s responsible for Toutiao, the company’s news aggregator and ByteDance’s first big hit, and Douyin, its version of TikTok for the Chinese market. ByteDance reportedly has 850 million users in China, more than the rest of the world combined, and the Chinese market reportedly generates $69 billion in revenue, over 80% of ByteDance’s global total. Zhang joined ByteDance in 2014 after the developer acquired her startup, and became China CEO in 2020 thanks in part to her success building Douyin. She’s now trying to fend off new competition from established tech giants like Tencent, while expanding Douyin into new areas, like e-payment, ride-hailing, and e-commerce. Still, Zhang and ByteDance now face slowing growth in the critical Chinese market, as well as increased scrutiny from Beijing, the latter of which reportedly has contributed to a delay in ByteDance’s long-awaited IPO.