Greek Australian Vanessa Pappas has been announced as the interim head of embattled video-sharing app TikTok, taking over after its chief executive quit after less than three months in the job.
The announcement comes after the shock resignation of Kevin Mayer, who blamed the changing “political environment” for his decision to leave the job he only started on June 1.
Chinese company ByteDance has come under pressure from US President Donald Trump to sell TikTok, which the US Government considers a security risk.
Ms Pappas has been working as the general manager of the US branch of the company since January 2019, and has been overseeing the Australia and New Zealand operations since June last year.
A graduate of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, she has previously worked at online video companies Next New Networks and YouTube.
Ms Pappas wrote on Twitter that she was “proud and humbled” to take on the interim role.
“Our community and our team who work so hard to enable this product continue to inspire me,” she wrote.
“It’s truly amazing what we’ve accomplished in two years, I have no doubt what we can accomplish in this next chapter.”
ByteDance launched TikTok in 2017, then bought Musical.ly, a video service popular with teens in the US and Europe, and combined the two. A twin service, Douyin, is available for Chinese users.
The app is popular among youth and has amassed more than 680 million monthly active users around the world.
Tech giant Microsoft and retailer Walmart have made a joint bid to buy TikTok’s US business, according to Reuters.
Sourced By: ABC
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