Pakistan, Jan. 29 -- Shou Zi Chew, the current CEO of TikTok, once interned at Facebook under none other than Mark Zuckerberg. Fast forward a decade, and he's now leading TikTok-one of Zuckerberg's fiercest competitors in the social media arena.

Born and raised in Singapore, Chew's career took him from an economics degree at University College London to an MBA at Harvard Business School, where, during his summer internship, he worked at a fledgling company named "Facebook." Little did he know then that this would set the stage for his eventual clash with Zuckerberg, his former mentor.

After his stint in California with Facebook, Chew's journey took him around the globe-London, Singapore, Hong Kong-before landing him in Beijing. In 2015,...