BEIJING : TikTok-owner ByteDance has appointed corporate attorney Julie Gao as its new chief financial officer , according to an internal memo sent to staff on Monday and seen by Reuters.
Gao, currently a Hong Kong-based capital markets attorney at law firm Skadden, will be based in Hong Kong and Singapore once she joins ByteDance, according to the memo sent by ByteDance chief executive Liang Rubo.Gao will join ByteDance in May, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
Gao has advised on ByteDance's acquisitions of Musical.ly, which was later integrated into TikTok, and Shanghai-based gaming studio Moonton, according to her biography page on Skadden's official website. The move comes after ByteDance's former CFO Shou Zi Chew, who joined the company in March 2021, stepped down in November from the CFO role to focus on being TikTok's CEO.ByteDance said last April https://www.reuters.com/article/bytedance-ipo-idUSL4N2MG3DW it did not have any imminent plans for a public listing. Sources had previously told Reuters it was looking at a Hong Kong or New York listing.
The 10-year-old company saw its total revenue grow by 70 per cent year on year to around $58 billion in 2021 https://www.reuters.com/markets/funds/exclusive-tiktok-owner-bytedances-revenue-growth-slowed-70-2021-sources-2022-01-20, Reuters has reported, slower growth than a year earlier as China tightens its regulation of big tech companies.One of the world's largest private companies, ByteDance had a valuation of about $300 billion in trades earlier this year.