Leaked TikTok org chart shows China-based execs now run US Shop

Six of the seven US product category leaders at TikTok Shop previously worked in China at ByteDance or other companies, according to a leaked org chart reviewed by Business Insider alongside insider interviews and verified LinkedIn profiles. The shift means TikTok's US e-commerce arm — now capturing about 2% of total US online retail spend, up from 1.2% a year ago per Consumer Edge's July analysis of card transactions — is operating with fewer leaders who can flag US-specific market issues, more than a dozen current and former staffers said.

For HR and talent leaders, the story is a case study in how leadership replacement, performance-review-driven exits and imported workplace norms reshape a US workforce. TikTok shed its American e-commerce executives through layoffs and voluntary departures while elevating leaders with Chinese e-commerce backgrounds, many now US-based.

Who runs TikTok Shop's US operations?

Operations are overseen by Mu Qing, known as Mason, a former Douyin e-commerce executive who reports to Bob Kang, ByteDance's e-commerce lead. The person running TikTok's US Shop creator team previously ran Douyin's creator team.

A TikTok spokesperson said the Shop US leadership team "has remained largely unchanged for more than a year, and the entire organization is focused on helping American businesses of all sizes grow and succeed on the platform." The company pointed to a May-June survey it commissioned from PF Global: 85% of businesses using TikTok Shop said it increased sales and revenue, and 81% said it helped them reach customers they couldn't access through physical or online stores.

How the local leadership drained away

The US team wasn't always built this way. In 2023, TikTok went on a hiring spree from Amazon — which controls about 35% of US online retail spend, per Consumer Edge — bringing in nine-year Amazon veteran Nicolas Le Bourgeois and former Meta and eBay executive Marni Levine. Food and beverage head Cameron Gould-Saltman also came from Amazon.

In early 2025, ByteDance leadership told staffers it was unhappy with TikTok Shop's US performance. Through performance review cycles, reorgs and layoffs, the company lost many US operations leaders, including Le Bourgeois. In May 2025, per a memo from Mu, TikTok appointed Patrick Nommensen as "external ambassador to represent US TikTok Shop in external engagements" — effectively the local external face of the business.

The changeover also hit advertising. In March 2025, TikTok replaced top US advertising leader Blake Chandlee with Will Liu (Liu Xiaobing), who worked on monetization products for ByteDance's Chinese apps. In April, North America advertising exec Khartoon Weiss, Chandlee's on-the-ground replacement, left the company.

What does the leadership change mean for sellers and strategy?

The friction surfaced publicly earlier this year, when TikTok told all US merchants to switch to its in-house fulfillment and shipping program by the end of March. Sellers threatened to leave, per a Shop agency partner, and the company scrapped the policy in February.

"Leadership from China is used to consumers or sellers adjusting quickly, but in the US, customers have alternatives, and if they don't like an experience they will not usually stick around," said a former Shop staffer who worked on TikTok's shipping strategy.

In 2024, ByteDance pushed the US team to replicate Douyin's live-shopping playbook, running a companywide livestream commerce training program. Live commerce drives hundreds of billions of dollars annually in China but is forecast at just under $20 billion in US sales this year, per EMARKETER. "They wanted 'Live' to be the thing like it is in Asia, but organizationally it was the big push, and then they moved everything back," said a former staffer laid off last year.

Z. John Zhang, a Wharton professor and founding director of its China Center, said importing home-market leaders carries risks: "This means that you do have to bring your own people in to implement whatever is working in your own home country." Those leaders, he added, often make assumptions about a foreign market that can produce strategic mistakes.

Is 996 culture spreading in US offices?

Three insiders said elements of "996 work culture" — the Chinese workplace philosophy of 12-hour days plus weekends — have ramped up in US e-commerce hubs like Seattle. "There's people who are hungrier, used to the long hours, more prepared for the chaos of moving quickly," a current Shop staffer said. "That's something that I battle with."

The structural backdrop matters: ByteDance sold a large chunk of TikTok US to an investor consortium in January to comply with the divestment law, ceding oversight of areas like data management, but kept full control of its US e-commerce and advertising businesses. With US retail momentum continuing — TikTok reported more than $500 million in product sales during the Black Friday-to-Cyber Monday stretch in December — the question for employers and sellers is whether the China-led leadership model can keep scaling without the local voices that once guided it.