North Star

Shou Zi Chew, the Singaporean CEO of TikTok, opens up about unintended fame, the newest member in his family, and what it takes to lead the behemoth digital platform shaping global culture.

- CHANDREYEE RAY

It is 3pm on a Monday and I am seated in a conference room on a high floor in Tiktok’s Singapore office. I am 15 minutes early for my meeting but the time passes quickly, thanks to a panoramic view of the city through the ceiling-to-floor windows bracketing the room. When Shou Zi Chew bursts in, I leap to my feet, startled out of my reverie.

Dressed in a pair of jeans and a simple T-shirt, Chew makes a beeline for me with his hand outstretched. “I must say, I never expected to do a Vogue interview,” he jokes. We sit down to chat and he listens to my questions intently. When he answers, he is open but never overshares. I get the sense that a personal interview like this one is not yet second nature to him, but he is determined to make this worth my time.

Chew became the CEO of TikTok in May 2021, just two months after he had joined the app’s parent company—China-based ByteDance—as its chief financial officer. Since his appointment at TikTok, the social media platform specialising in short-form video content has grown considerably, surpassing one billion users worldwide under his leadership.

In March, the 40-year-old Singaporean testified in a US Congress hearing about TikTok’s relationship with China and protections for its youngest users. Several global news outlets characterised the questioning targeted at Chew as “contentious” and “aggressive”—with US lawmakers repeatedly cutting him off midsentence—and video clips of the hearing quickly went viral.