Leaked TikTok org chart reveals how execs from China have gained power in its US e-commerce operations

Earlier this year, the e-commerce squad at TikTok announced a guideline alter that sent several of its sellers into a frenzy.

The business told all US merchants they needed to toggle to TikTok Shop's in-house fulfillment and shipping program by the end of March. They could no longer dispatch out their products independently and would have to pay TikTok's assistance fee.

The command drew backlash, alongside several sellers threatening to depart the platform, a Shop agency partner said. The business scrapped the projected guideline in February.

Company insiders say the event speaks to how guidance inside TikTok Shop in the US has changed complete the final few years. TikTok has elevated executives alongside backgrounds in Chinese e-commerce — many of whom are now based in the US — and shed American e-commerce leaders through layoffs or voluntary exits. TikTok Shop's US operations are now mostly led by staffers who were earlier or are currently based in China, according to an org diagram viewed by Business Insider, conversations alongside business insiders, and a assessment of executives' verified LinkedIn accounts.

TikTok Shop is ByteDance's bet on social shopping, a new form of e-commerce in which consumers buy products through influencer videos or livestreams. The phase offers everything from phone chargers to houseplants, enlisting satisfied creators to assistance market products in toggle for a commission.

The e-commerce phase has gained market portion in the US, capturing concerning 2% of total online retailing spend in July, up from concerning 1.2% a twelvemonth ago, according to Consumer Edge, a customer-intelligence resolute that analyses US credit and debit cardstock transactions. At the identical time, the business now has small leaders alongside US e-commerce cognition to flag possible issues, additional than a dozen current and erstwhile staffers said.

TikTok Shop's operations squad is overseen by Mu Qing, a erstwhile e-commerce administrator for Douyin, the Chinese type of TikTok. Mu, who goes by Mason, reports to Bob Kang, ByteDance's e-commerce lead. Six out of the seven US merchandise category leaders who study to Mu earlier worked in China at ByteDance or another companies. The individual overseeing TikTok's US Shop creator squad earlier ran Douyin's creator team.

A TikTok spokesman stated its Shop US guidance squad "has remained mostly unchanged for additional than a year, and the complete institution is focused on assisting American businesses of all sizes develop and win on the platform."

They pointed to a May and June study the business commissioned from PF Global, which established that 85% of businesses using TikTok Shop stated it had risen revenue and revenue, during 81% stated it had helped them attain new customers they couldn't admission via a bodily or online store.

TikTok's risen reliance on Chinese leaders in the US arrives following Congress and two presidents spent additional than fractional a decade pushing its owner, ByteDance, to market its US business, fearing its genitor could be compelled by the Chinese authorities to alter its algorithm or hand complete admission to US person data. In January, ByteDance sold off a ample chunk of TikTok US to a consortium of investors to comply alongside a divestment law. It passed alongside oversight to those investors of parts of its operations, specified as data management, but did not relinquish control of its US e-commerce or advertising businesses.

Having guidance alongside connections in the Chinese market has helped the business develop income in the US. Some of TikTok's executives have brought seller and agency relationships from the country, which have helped boost US revenue on TikTok Shop. Many of Shop's abroad sellers are based in China, although they frequently set up entities in the US. Still, business insiders stated the changing of the defender has led to several scheme missteps whenever local nuances are lost.

"Leadership from China is used to consumers or sellers adjusting quickly, but in the US, customers have alternatives, and if they don't akin an cognition they volition not normally rod around," stated one erstwhile Shop staffer who worked on TikTok's shipping strategy.

TikTok's evolving US structure

Organizational shake-ups inside TikTok that have unseated local leaders haven't been confined to TikTok Shop's operations team. Last year, the business reorganized its earth e-commerce governance and cognition team, handing greater oversight of new markets akin Latin America to executives from China and Singapore. In March 2025, it replaced its top US promotion leader, Blake Chandlee, alongside Will Liu, known in China as Liu Xiaobing, an administrator who worked on monetization products for ByteDance's Chinese apps and TikTok. In April, North America promotion exec Khartoon Weiss, who had served as Chandlee's on-the-ground replacement, additionally remaining the company.

Companies that desire to develop into a new market frequently do so since they accept they have a rivalrous advantage they can replicate in a abroad country, stated Z. John Zhang, a Wharton prof and founding director of its China Center.

"This method that you do have to bring your own group in to execute any is operating in your own residence country," he said.

He added that these leaders frequently create assumptions concerning a abroad market according to cognition in their residence one. That can guide to strategic mistakes, he said.

TikTok hired Amazon endowment to boot off Shop

TikTok's US e-commerce operations squad wasn't continually led by Chinese executives.

In 2023, it went on a hiring spree from Amazon and another US companies as it prepared to get its e-commerce endeavor off the ground.

Among its first recruits were Nicolas Le Bourgeois, a nine-year Amazon veteran, and Marni Levine, a erstwhile Meta and eBay executive, who were brought on to assistance run US operations. Some merchandise category executives came from Amazon, too, akin food and beverage caput Cameron Gould-Saltman.

Enlisting Amazonians to assistance navigate the US market was strategic, as Amazon is the country's foremost player, controlling concerning 35% of US online retailing expend in Consumer Edge's July analysis.

Hiring local experts whenever entering a new market is a average scheme among global firms, Zhang said.

"You depend a small bit additional on the locals, but clasp onto the additional specialized and advanced jobs for your own residence nation and executives," Zhang said.

In 2024, ByteDance's e-commerce executives pushed the US squad to try to replicate strategies that had worked fine on Douyin, specified as live shopping. It issued a companywide training program for livestream commerce, encouraging brands to clasp live marketing and asking TikTok workforce to try marketing products on camera.

In the Chinese market, live commerce drives hundreds of billions of dollars in annual sales. It's much additional niche in the US, anywhere it's expected to run fair under $20 milliard in revenue this year, according to a forecast from EMARKETER, Business Insider's sister company.

"They wanted 'Live' to be the item akin it is in Asia, but organizationally it was the big push, and afterward they moved everything back," stated one erstwhile Shop staffer who worked alongside partners on their live marketing strategies and was laid off final year.

Top guidance "eventually got astute to this not being item they could brute force," they said.

"Being in China and having a prosperous example that plant in that market, they tried to fair use it in the American market," stated another erstwhile staffer who worked alongside TikTok Shop creators.

Top guidance became disappointed alongside US growth

In first 2025, ByteDance guidance told staffers it was unhappy alongside TikTok Shop's US performance. Through a sequence of achievement assessment cycles, team reorgs, and layoffs, it misplaced many of its US operations leaders, including Le Bourgeois.

As local leaders exited, the business in May 2025 appointed a US staffer, Patrick Nommensen, to a new function as "external ambassador to portray US TikTok Shop in external engagements," per a business memo sent by Mu and viewed by Business Insider. Nommensen serves as the local visage of the endeavor externally.

Shop has continued to acquire traction as additional Americans get acclimated to purchasing in the social feed. In December, TikTok stated it traversed $500 myriad in merchandise revenue during the four-day holiday stretch from Black Friday to Cyber Monday, for example.

Internally, current and erstwhile TikTok Shop staffers say the change from US to Chinese guidance has changed agency civilization in e-commerce hubs akin Seattle, Washington.

Three insiders felt that elements of "996 activity culture," a office doctrine popularized in China that encourages staffers to activity 12-hour days and on weekends, had ramped up at TikTok in the US.

The office mindset has shifted, a current Shop staffer said.

"There's group who are hungrier, used to the lengthy hours, additional prepared for the anarchy of moving quickly," they said. "That's item that I battle with."