Kevin Mayer is a well-known American entrepreneur and the CEO of Tik Tok. He rose to prominence after becoming the CEO of Tik Tok, a prominent and widely used app. He is also the Chairman of Walt Disney International, which he created. He earned his bachelor’s degree in science and engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Early life and education
Mayer earned a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a master of science from San Diego State University, as well as an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Business career
In 1993, Kevin Mayer began working at The Walt Disney Company handling strategy and business development for Disney’s Interactive/Internet and television businesses worldwide. He later was promoted to head up Disney Internet group as executive vice president.
Mayer was then named Chief Executive Officer of Playboy.com, the digital subsidiary of Chicago’s Playboy Enterprises in February 2000.
In September 2000, Mayer left Playboy and was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Clear Channel Interactive, a division of Clear Channel Worldwide. He served in that position until December 2001.
He joined L.E.K. Consulting as a partner and head of the global media and entertainment practice in February 2002.
Mayer rejoined The Walt Disney Company as Executive Vice President, Corporate Strategy, Business Development, and Technology in June 2005 the designated in October 2005 as an executive officer. Mayer was involved with the purchases of Pixar, Marvel Entertainment, Lucasfilm, Club Penguin and Maker Studios, as well as its agreement reached in December 2017 to acquire most of the 21st Century Fox assets. In 2010, he arranged the sale of Miramax to Filmyard Holdings, a group of business including Ronald Tutor of Tutor-Saliba and Tutor Perini construction companies, Colony Capital and its chairman Tom Barrack and former Disney CFO Richard Nanula.
In March of 2018, Mayer was named chairman of Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International, a new segment division, which would include various streaming businesses, international channels, ad sales and distribution.
In May of 2020, Mayer resigned from The Walt Disney Company to become COO of Chinese internet technology company ByteDance Ltd and CEO of its popular social media app TikTok. On August 26, Mayer announced that he will step down from both roles and leave ByteDance altogether. In his resignation letter, he said that Vanessa Pappas, TikTok’s U.S. general manager, will take over as interim global head of TikTok.
On 27 August 2020, Mayer resigned as CEO of TikTok, three months after taking the position.
