Senior ByteDance India executives exit amid uncertainty: Report

As Chinese company ByteDance struggles to find certainty after TikTok was banned in India and US, a report by the Economic Times citing sources said that several senior executives of the company are making exits.

ByeDance’s subsidiaries TikTok and Helo were banned by India amid border tension with China. 

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Among the exits was Rohan Mishra, India head for Helo who made a beeline for CocaCola, where he serves as the director of government relations and public advocacy.

ByteDance’s director of public policy, Nitin Saluja, also moved Amazon India, where he is now a senior public policy manager.

Former head of strategy Raj Mishra and former associate marketing director Rohan Tyagi, now moved to top positions at Triller India.

Karan Grover, previously senior director, partnership and alliances at ByteDance, will now serve as director, music partnerships at Dolby laboratories. 

Sachin Sharma, ByteDance’s director for sales and brand partnerships, left for LinkedIn two months before the ban was announced.

Also Read | ByteDance to hand out cash bonuses to staff amid US pressure on TikTok

“Not one person I’ve approached has said they are not looking. People are expecting that something will work out for the company but at the same time, they know it may be a good idea to look out. It’s unlikely they will retain many people at such a high compensation level,” a headhunter told the publication.

While some executives hired just before the ban are still with the organisation, they may have to take up jobs in accordance with their pay scale at their previous workplace. 

Several of ByteDance’s high-ranking executives raked upwards of Rs 2 crores, which might be difficult for other organisations to match, requiring many to take pay-cuts, the report said. However, it gave out cash bonuses to employees last week. 

While the future is uncertain for ByteDance, it hopes to retain its employees as talks for sale of its subsidiaries are on. However, it handed iut cash bonuses to some staff last week.

The Trump administration has threatened to ban TikTok by mid-September and ordered ByteDance to sell its US business, claiming national-security risks due to its Chinese ownership.

TikTok denied it is a national-security risk and is suing to stop the US administration from the threatened ban.

On Monday, reports citing sources familar with the deal said that TikTok chose Oracle over Microsoft as its preferred suitor to buy the popular video-sharing app.