Kelly Zhang () is a Chinese businesswoman. She is the

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

ByteDance ByteDance Ltd. () is a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Beijing and incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Founded by Zhang Yiming, Liang Rubo and a team of others in 2012, ByteDance developed the video-sharing social networking ...

China. She is responsible for overseeing the operations and management of the company's China portfolio, including the video-sharing platform

Douyin TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

and the news aggregator

Toutiao Toutiao (头条, "headlines") or Jinri Toutiao (今日头条, "Today's Headlines") is a Chinese news and information content platform, a core product of the China-based company ByteDance. By analyzing the features of content, users and users' in ...

. Zhang was named to the ''Forbes'' list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2020 and to ''Fortune'''s Most Powerful Women International list in 2020 and 2021.

Early life and career

Zhang studied painting as a child and completed her university studies in 2003 with a degree in

fine arts In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...

. After graduating, Zhang's first position was working on product planning and design for three years in Beijing at Digital Red, a

mobile game A mobile game, or smartphone game, is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to ...

studio. In 2006, Zhang left Digital Red and began working at Qianchi Unlimited, a social media app developer. In February 2013, Zhang founded a photo-sharing app called Tuba, which accumulated nearly 500,000 users in its first six months.

ByteDance

Tuba was acquired by ByteDance in 2014, where Zhang had begun working as a product manager. Zhang was then put in charge of ByteDance's

user-generated content User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion f ...

business. She has been credited for the success of Douyin, which launched in September 2016, and was named CEO of Douyin in March 2018. During Zhang's tenure as Douyin CEO, she worked to build Douyin's presence in Chinese cities by developing partnerships with international luxury fashion and sports brands. Zhang was also responsible for other ByteDance brands such as Huoshan Video, photo editor Qingyan and video editor Jianying. In March 2020, Zhang became CEO of ByteDance's China business. In January 2021, Zhang was responsible for the rollout of Douyin Pay, a built-in service to allow Douyin users to buy goods and services within the app.

Awards and recognition

*2020: #62, ''Forbes'' list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women *2020: #45, ''Fortune'' Most Powerful Women International *2021: #48, ''Fortune'' Most Powerful Women International *2021: #11, ''Forbes China'' 100 Top Businesswomen List

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zhang, Kelly Living people 21st-century Chinese businesswomen ByteDance people Chinese computer businesspeople Chinese women chief executives Year of birth missing (living people)