Bytedance's news app Jinri Toutiao appoints new CEO

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One of China's most popular news app Jinri Toutiao, run by China's most valuable unicorn company Bytedance, just announced a new CEO.

Chen Lin, an early Bytedance employee who headed the product management of the app, made his first appearance as the new CEO at a company event on Saturday, which means that Zhang Yiming, the creator of Jinri Toutiao and founder of the company, has handed the helm to Chen.

But Zhang stays as the CEO of Bytedance, one of China's fastest growing tech start-ups that also operates the hottest short video sharing app TikTok and a slew of other media apps.

Zhang Yiming attending the first Digital China Summit in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, April 24, 2018 /VCG Photo

The handover may signal a need for Zhang to step back from daily operations in his brainchild to put more energy into the overall strategies for the company's development.

The six-year-old company is reported to be valued at 75 billion US dollars, a price tag that makes it overtake Uber to become the world's most valuable privately-backed startup.

The latest in a long list of investors for the Chinese tech star is Japan's Softbank, which is said just to put three billion US dollars into the company.

Launched in 2012, Jinri Toutiao, which means "Today's Headlines" in Chinese, was the first such app in China that aggregated articles from third-party providers and use AI algorithms to personalize content for users.