TikTok ad leader Khartoon Weiss to step down in latest high-profile exit

Other recent departures have included global head of creators, Kim Farrell, who left earlier this year, and Blake Chandlee, who departed in 2025 after leading advertising and marketing

By Alexandra S. Levine

 

TikTok advertising leader Khartoon Weiss is leaving the short-form video company, joining a wave of American executives stepping down over the past year. 

 

Weiss is departing to pursue a new opportunity, the company said Tuesday. She had been at the video service nearly six years, most recently in charge of TikTok’s global brands and agency business for North America.

 

Other recent departures have included global head of creators, Kim Farrell, who left earlier this year after almost six years, and Blake Chandlee, who departed in 2025 after leading advertising and marketing for six years.

 

 

Michael Beckerman, a public policy executive who helped lead TikTok’s fight against a US ban, also exited last year, as did music chief Ole Obermann. And Erich Andersen, who served as US-based general counsel for TikTok and its Chinese parent ByteDance Ltd., left that role in 2024.

 

Though ByteDance spun off key parts of its US business in January — part of a national security deal brokered by the Trump administration — the Chinese company remains in control of the advertising and marketing arm. In March, Weiss was the star of TikTok’s first major event since this tumultuous regulatory saga came to a close following more than half a decade.

 

“We’re going to kick into fifth gear,” Weiss said at the event. “We’re going to completely accelerate.” 

 

In a memo this week, Weiss told advertisers that a search was underway for a replacement. The message was first reported by Digiday.

 

ByteDance regularly restructures TikTok teams and shuffles leaders. In some cases, it’s enlisted leaders or personnel who worked in China, angling to replicate the success it’s enjoyed in that country with TikTok’s sister app, Douyin.