Meet TikTok's new CEO Kevin Mayer, the former Disney executive who's behind the explosive growth of Disney Plus and has the nickname 'Buzz Lightyear'

Kevin Mayer, who just resigned as Disney's head of streaming to go to TikTok, oversaw the launch of Disney Plus in November 2019.Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney

• Kevin Mayer is the new CEO of TikTok, the viral short-form video-sharing app announced on Monday.
• Mayer left his role as the head of streaming at Disney, where he launched Disney Plus in November 2019.
• At Disney, Mayer was instrumental in the company's acquisitions of Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox.
• The 58-year-old executive had been seen as a possible successor to Disney CEO Bob Iger before Iger stepped down earlier this year, but Bob Chapek was named Disney's new CEO instead.
• When he was promoted to head of streaming in 2018, Mayer's base salary rose from $1.5 million to $1.8 million, per the company's SEC filings.

Kevin Mayer stepped down as Disney's head of streaming on Monday to become the new CEO of short-form video app TikTok, Brooks Barnes and Jack Nicas reported for The New York Times.

Mayer will also be chief operating officer of ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok.

Mayer grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, and worked as a movie theater usher in high school, per The Wall Street Journal. He studied engineering at San Diego State University and then the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology before getting his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Apart from a five-year stint, part of which was spent as CEO of Playboy.com, the 58-year-old executive has been at Disney since 1993. He's known for closing major deals, including Disney's purchases of Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar, and most of 21st Century Fox.

Most recently, Mayer oversaw the launch of Disney's streaming service, Disney Plus, which has amassed 54 million subscribers since November 2019.

Here's what we know about the life and career of TikTok's new CEO.