Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Women on corporate boards have hit a meaningful milestone, Daily Harvest founder Rachel Drori is confident the company can come back from a crisis, and TikTok undergoes a shakeup. Happy Friday!
– Clocking out. For five years, V. Pappas has been a source of stability at TikTok. In the platform’s wildest days—a CEO’s abbreviated four-month tenure, the scrutiny of former President Donald Trump—Pappas steered the ByteDance-owned short-form video app.
Yesterday, Pappas announced that they would step down as COO. “I took a gamble on what was then a completely unknown company,” Pappas wrote in a note to employees. “Today I stand proud that we deliver a product that resonates with over 1 billion people around the world. TikTok is a household name.” Pappas will stay on as an adviser.
With much of ByteDance and TikTok’s top leadership based in China, Los Angeles-based Pappas served as a face of the app in the U.S. To everyone from users to regulators. Pappas was hired as general manager for the U.S. In 2018 and then served as global interim head of TikTok in 2020 after CEO Kevin Mayer’s abrupt exit. They became COO in 2021. The platform’s explosive growth and the unusual visibility of their COO job placed Pappas at No. 49 on Coins2Day’ s Most Powerful Women in Business list last year.
Earlier this year, Pappas shared publicly that they’d started identifying as nonbinary, using both she/her and they/them pronouns. Pappas said they’d long preferred to go by “V,” the first initial of their given first name, with friends, but had begun to use “they/them” pronouns more recently. The announcement was notable; Pappas may be the first C-level executive at a major tech company to openly identify as nonbinary.
In their departing note, the former YouTube exec said the “time is right” to “refocus on entrepreneurial passions.” Pappas cited innovation in generative A.I., robotics, and blockchain as reasons for their renewed focus on entrepreneurship.
Pappas’ departure as COO occurred alongside a broader executive restructuring at TikTok that included the hiring of Zenia Mucha as chief brand and communications officer.
Mucha is a two-decade Disney veteran known for her forceful defense of the company. She coached TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew ahead of his appearance before Congress in the U.S. As TikTok deals with the growing threat of bans and continued scrutiny of its ownership and the security of American users’ data, Mucha is sure to be a vocal advocate for the platform here.
Emma Hinchliffe
[email protected]
@_emmahinchliffe
The Broadsheet is Coins2Day’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Kinsey Crowley. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Board milestone. Women hold a third of board seats at all S&P 500 companies for the first time ever, an elusive benchmark that advocates say will help shift dynamics at individual companies. In May, when many directors announce their retirement at annual meetings, four times as many men retired from boards compared to women. More women have been filling those open seats. Bloomberg
- Bankruptcy takeover. Overstock.com will acquire the intellectual property and digital assets of troubled home goods retailer Bed Bath & Beyond for $21.5 million. CEO Sue Gove was unable to help turn the company around after an ill-fated $1 billion stock buyback, and the company filed for bankruptcy in April. Washington Post
- Long-awaited settlement. Singer Kesha and producer Dr. Luke have settled a series of contentious lawsuits that are nearly a decade old. Kesha accused Dr. Luke of sexually assaulting her, and he countersued claiming defamation. They did not disclose the details of the settlement. Associated Press
- Checks cleared. New Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino is repairing relationships with vendors after the company ignored some of its bills under owner Elon Musk. She's smoothing things over with Google and Google Cloud's CEO after Twitter failed to pay for cloud services that cost as much as $20 million a month. Wall Street Journal
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Lin-Hua Wu will be GM's new senior VP and chief communications officer.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Crumbles crisis. Last year, direct-to-consumer vegan food subscription company Daily Harvest released French Lentin + Leek Crumbles, which contained tara flour that likely sent at least 130 people to the hospital with toxin poisoning symptoms. Now founder and CEO Rachel Drori says she's confident the company can move forward with its first new product since the crisis. Fast Company
- Rate hike. Less than a month into her tenure as the head of Turkey's central bank, Hafize Gaye Erkan has nearly doubled the country's interest rate as it battles inflation nearing 40%. The country's first rate hike since December 2020 is part of reelected President Recep Erdogan's attempt to turn the economy around. BBC
- Staying home. More men in the U.S. Are returning to work compared to women, according to a national survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Twenty-eight percent of men reported working at least partly at home in 2022, down from 35% the year before. The share of women fell only slightly in the same time frame, from 41.5% to 41%. Bloomberg
ON MY RADAR
The transgender family handbook The Cut
The pain and promise of Europe’s abortion laws Wired
A North Korean dissident defects to the American right New York Times
Coco Jones wants you to expect the unexpectedElle
PARTING WORDS
“There really is no substitute for seeing yourself reflected back at you. Getting to see queer people and queer stories with a real authenticity to them is very important.”
—Actor Cynthia Nixon on Miranda’s queer evolution on And Just Like That...
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