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

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

ByteDance ByteDance Ltd. is a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Haidian, 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 ap ...

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 mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...

and the news aggregator Toutiao. Zhang was ranked 64th on ''

Fortune Fortune may refer to: General * Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck * Luck * Wealth * Fate * Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling * Fortune, in a fortune cookie Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Fortune'' (19 ...

'''s list of Most Powerful Women in 2023. She was named in the ''Forbes'' list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2020, and in the ''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 (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creativity, creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function ...

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

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), emerged from the rise of web services which allow a system's User (computing), users to create Content (media), content, such as images, videos, audio, text, testi ...

business. She has been credited for the success of Douyin, which was launched in September 2016, and was named the CEO of Douyin in March, 2018. During Zhang's tenure as Douyin's 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 21st-century Chinese businesspeople ByteDance people Chinese computer businesspeople Chinese women chief executives Year of birth missing (living people)