(Yicai Global) May 19 -- Kevin Mayer, The Disney Company’s streaming chief, will jump ship to ByteDance to become its chief operating officer and chief executive of its TikTok video platform starting June 1, the Beijing-based firm announced today.

Mayer, who reports directly to ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming, will head up the music, gaming, Helo and emerging businesses, as well as building a global community of creators, users and brands for ballooning TikTok, per the announcement. Helo is an entertainment content platform targeting the Indian market.

As a business development leader for Disney, Mayer, who was long seen as a potential successor to ex-CEO Bob Iger, was heavily involved with the purchases of Pixar, Marvel Entertainment, Lucasfilm, and most of Twenty-First Century Fox’s assets. He took over the newly reorganized Direct-to-Consumer & International unit in early 2018.

"Kevin's wealth of experience building successful global businesses makes him an outstanding fit for our mission of inspiring creativity for users globally, Zhang said, adding,"As one of the world's most accomplished entertainment executives, Kevin is incredibly well placed to take ByteDance's portfolio of products to the next level. I look forward to working very closely with Kevin on our global development and the next chapter of the ByteDance story."

“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to join the amazing team at ByteDance,” Mayer said in a statement. “Like everyone else, I’ve been impressed watching the company build something incredibly rare in TikTok -- a creative, positive online global community -- and I’m excited to help lead the next phase of ByteDance’s journey as the company continues to expand its breadth of products across every region of the world.”

Mayer also thanked the whole Disney team, especially its former CEO Bob Iger and present one Bob Chapek in his statement.

Current TikTok President Alex Zhu will move to the post of ByteDance vice president of Product & Strategy, where he will oversee product design.

ByteDance is the world's largest unlisted technology unicorn with a value of up to USD100 billion, technology news portal Technode reported March 31. It operates in over 180 cities in 30 countries and regions and has 60,000 employees. Its TikTok app, which is called Douyin in China, had been downloaded 2 billion times as of May, data from US-based mobile phone analytics firm Sensor Tower show.

Editor: Ben Armour