ByteDance today announced that Douyin CEO Nan (Kelly) Zhang has been named CEO of ByteDance China, overseeing the company's countrywide business operations, while Lidong Zhang has been named Chairman of ByteDance China.

Kelly will be responsible for the company’s products in the China market, leading product management and operation, marketing, and partnerships for Toutiao, Douyin, Xigua, Toutiao Search and other products and services. As Chairman, Lidong will oversee the company’s non-product operations in China, including strategy, commercialization, strategic partnerships, legal affairs, public affairs, public relations, finance and human resources. Kelly and Lidong, who joined ByteDance in 2014 and 2013, respectively, will report to ByteDance CEO Yiming Zhang.

Yiming will focus on leading and developing ByteDance's global strategy as ByteDance's Global CEO. His key priorities will be working on major long-term strategies to support the company's tremendous global growth, as well as its CSR efforts, and new businesses such as education. He will also focus on building out the ByteDance global management team.

Yiming told employees, "The rapid growth ByteDance has achieved over the past eight years is a testament to the dedication of all our employees, a global team we expect to number 100,000 by the end of the year. With this growth comes many challenges, and the most effective way to overcome these challenges is by optimizing our organization structure. Today's announcement is an important step in this direction."

He went on to tell employees, "Over the next three years, I plan to visit all regions where we have offices, and learn both about local culture and also about the company's operations in these locations. In addition to building products and services, we will increase our focus on developing a stronger global organization that embraces diversity, fosters creativity, enables employees to reach their potential, and better serves our users."

Since its founding eight years ago, ByteDance has become a global company with over 60,000 employees in more than 180 cities across 30 countries and regions at the end of 2019. ByteDance's products cover 150 countries and regions in about 75 languages.