TikTok’s Chinese version Douyin appoints 32-year-old ‘straight shooter’ as new leader amid efforts to expand into new markets
- The 32-year-old Han will be responsible for ‘coordinating the management of Douyin, [its] life service business line and live streaming business’
- Compared with his predecessors, Han is seen as a younger face who parent company ByteDance can rely on to inject fresh ideas
Short video platform Douyin, the Chinese sibling to ByteDance-owned TikTok, has appointed 32-year-old Han Shangyou as its business leader, making him the youngest executive in charge of the hugely popular app.
Several Douyin managers, including Wu Xiaodan, in charge of user growth, and Zhi Ying who oversees content and product, now report to Han, according to a notice on its internal human resources system seen by the South China Morning Post.
Han, who previously managed Douyin’s local services and its open developer platform, directly reports to Kelly Zhang Nan, the most powerful woman in ByteDance who heads the Douyin business unit that includes the video app as well as other signature products like news aggregator Jinri Toutiao.
A representative from the Douyin business unit said that Han would now be responsible for “coordinating the management of Douyin, [its] life service business line and live streaming business”.
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Han, who graduated from the prestigious Nanjing University in 2013, joined ByteDance in 2016, where he worked for short video platform Huoshan, now rebranded to support Douyin. He later moved to oversee the live streaming team at the video app.