Bytedance exec takes the helm at Tokopedia as merger closes

Photo credit: Creativa Images / Shutterstock

With its deal with TikTok having officially closed, Tokopedia has appointed a new CEO. According to a disclosure with the Indonesia Stock Exchange, Jakarta-based ByteDance executive Vonny Ernita Susamto is now the ecommerce company’s president director.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Susamto has been part of ByteDance’s category management team since 2021. Previously, she held a similar role at ecommerce enabler Jet Commerce and was a brand manager at cosmetics firm Shiseido.

Tech in Asia has reached out to ByteDance and GoTo for more information.

Susamto is one of Tokopedia’s three directors. Another is Melissa Siska Juminto, a veteran of the company since 2012. Juminto was appointed as COO in 2018 and became president of ecommerce last year, taking over day-to-day operations from co-founder William Tanuwijaya.

While Juminto is listed as director in the filing, it’s unclear what her new title is. Not much information is available on the third director, Mengzhi Xu.

TikTok has also reshuffled Tokopedia’s board of commissioners. Wilfred Halim, ByteDance’s global lead for ecommerce risk control and security, is now president commissioner. Prior to ByteDance, Halim was an executive at Google, Grab, and Lazada.

In addition to Halim, Tokopedia has two new commissioners in Chi-Jen Sung and Ran Gao. They join Patrick Walujo, GoTo Group’s CEO, and Garibaldi Thohir, the energy mogul who previously served as GoTo’s president commissioner.

With yesterday’s deal completion, TikTok now has a controlling stake in the merged TikTok-Tokopedia entity. However, GoTo will earn revenue from an “ecommerce service fee” from Tokopedia in line with the latter’s scale and growth.

The closure of the deal comes as GoTo Group hit positive adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter of 2023.