BEIJING (Reuters) – Beijing-based ByteDance plans to move the chief of its Chinese news aggregator Jinri Toutiao, Zhu Wenjia, to Singapore to head global research and development for its hit short video app TikTok, two people familiar with the matter said.
The role is newly created and would be the first senior R&D position for TikTok. Zhu will be in charge of the app’s product and technologies including its recommendation algorithms, the people said.
His position will be parallel to TikTok’s interim head Vanessa Pappas and will report directly to ByteDance founder and chief executive Zhang Yiming, they said.
ByteDance declined to comment. The sources declined to be named as the information is not public.
(Reporting by Yingzhi Yang in Beijing and Brenda Goh in Shanghai; editing by Jane Merriman)
