ByteDance hires former Facebook executive Blake Chandlee to drive TikTok's global expansion
ByteDance has hired former Facebook and Yahoo senior executive Blake Chandlee to help drive its international expansion of short-form video app TikTok.
ByteDance appoints former senior Facebook executive to help drive international expansion
Chandlee, who was previously vice-president of global partnerships at Facebook, has been appointed as head of strategic partnerships for TikTok.
In a post on Facebook, Chandlee said: “I have joined ByteDance/TikTok to help Yiming Zhang [Bytedance senior vice president], Lidong Zhang [ByteDance founder] and the team scale the business outside of the domestic market in China.”
“We are at a critical time in our online and mobile worlds and I believe that different views, perspectives, and models make everything better. The ByteDance Beijing teams have been thoughtful, eager, curious, energetic and focused....all attributes from the early days of any big tech company in Silicon Valley.”
The appointment comes at a critical time as the Beijing-based business attempts to grow internationally. However, its global ambitions have been stymied by regulatory issues in India, the US and Indonesia.
In April, the Indian government banned downloads of the app after safety concerns, while in February, ByteDance was slugged with a $5.7m fine in the US after it was found to have illegally gathered the details of users under the age of 13.
The company was also dealt a blow in the UK where a BBC investigation questioned the brand’s safety credentials after revealing ByteDance failed to suspend the accounts of people sending sexual messages to children via the app.
Chandlee joined Facebook in 2007 as vice-president of EMEA operations and was promoted to vice-president and commercial director for Asia-Pacific, Latin America and EMEA in June 2010. He led the social media company’s global partnerships from June 2011. Prior to joining Facebook, he was the commercial director at Yahoo UK.