Against the backdrop of global fears of possible surveillance by tik tak and “tsunami” of app blocking on government and corporate mobile phones from many countries, o CEO Su Zhiqiu, appeared before the US House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce.

There, he will be interrogated and testify about the app’s security and privacy practices, as well as its alleged ties to Beijing.

LIVE: TikTok CEO Show Zi Chu to testify before Congress https://t.co/jyccrIIQPJ

— Reuters (@Reuters) March 23, 2023

Although the 40-year-old man from Singapore is the face of the day, little is known about him and his role, power, or how the company is run.

Born and raised in Singapore, he was educated in English in London and Harvard Business School. Early in his career he handled deals for a venture capital firm in Asia. At the age of 32, he quickly rose through the ranks to become the chief financial officer of a Chinese mobile communications giant.

Army and Brunei

English is his native language, as are many Singaporeans with Chinese roots. His father worked in construction and accounting. As he said, his “humble” upbringing ended at the age of 12, when high marks in state exams sent him to elite school.

Chiu completed an officer course during his 2.5 years of mandatory military service. His term as a reserve officer ends when he turns 50.

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As he has described in the past, the most severe physical ordeal he experienced in his life was during five-day army survival drill in the Brunei jungle. There he built a hut, ate sweet potatoes to survive, and walked 90 kilometers. During the course, students were given live quails that had to be slaughtered by hand, peel it, roast it and eat it. In the interview, he did not want to reveal what he did with the bird.

road to tik tok

After serving in the army, he joined UCL in London, where he worked as a banker in Goldman Sachs.

After an internship at Facebook, he landed a job at a venture capital firm, Global Daylight Saving Timewith its (high school level) Chinese, making it a responsible partner in China.

In 2012, just as Apple had once been founded in a garage in Silicon Valley, he and thirty others, including a chef, holed up in a Beijing apartment to build an app. Thus was born ByteDance, which later gave the world TikTok. Its founder Zhang Yiminggot the better of Chiu and he invested in the company.

Chiu’s other major investment was in xiaomi, China’s tech giant. Initially, he worked there as the chief financial officer, and then was placed in charge of operations outside of China. What stood out, say his former colleagues, it was knowledge of both Chinese and Western markets.

“He is completely bicultural. This is a key asset for the CEO of a Chinese company trying to go global,” explains Hugo Barra, former Xiaomi CEO.

In 2021, Zhang, who was in touch with Chiu, asked him to take over the financial leadership of ByteDance, which he did for two months before he and the company’s founder decided to move to the CEO position of TikTok, which he “works” from the offices. in Singapore, although he travels a lot and often.

@shou.time Guess where! #TikTok ♬ Empire State Of Mind – JAY-Z

Although he is the big boss of the app, he is relatively unknown. According to an earlier New York Times article that quoted former TikTok and ByteDance executives, Chiu’s ability to make decisions is limitedsince Zhang Yiming actually holds the reins of the company.

About a year after he was named CEO, Chiu opened his own TikTok account last February, where he posts pictures of his personal life. He has about 19,000 followers and has been seen attending Super Bowl and NBA games, celebrity encounters and an awkward attempt at dancing with singer Ciara.

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He himself told in an interview how he fan of golf and Kevin Hart. He has two children with Taiwanese-American investment CEO Vivian Cao, whom he met at Harvard. According to him, he does not allow his children to use TikTok, “because they are still very small.”

Grand Challenge of Congress

Nearly three years after the Trump administration threatened to ban TikTok, the popular app is once again facing an existential crisis, and Chiu is facing perhaps the biggest challenge of his career.

His testimony before Congress and a flurry of questions from MPs will not be easy – as Mark Zuckerberg also found out at similar hearings in 2018 – although he himself said in a recent video that he was “terribly excited.”

On Tuesday, Chiu took off his formal attire and appeared on TikTok in a white t-shirt and hoodie, assuming the laidback air of a Silicon Valley guru.

The head of Tiktok is expected to be “interrogated” about the platform’s relationship with China, the data it collects and what it does with it. It is also expected to explain why several American journalists were followed by ByteDance employees, which TikTok itself admitted.

He will be asked, among other things, to reassure MPs that user data is safe and does not reach the Chinese government or anyone else.

Source: Wall Street Journal/BBC.