TikTok global comms head exits

TikTok VP of global communications Hilary McQuaide is leaving the video-based platform after seven years.

McQuaide is moving on to “take up a new adventure,” she wrote in a LinkedIn post. She did not disclose details about a new job and was not available for additional comment. 

“To say this was the most exciting, intense, fun, stressful, unbelievable, rewarding and truly memorable career experience would be an understatement,” McQuaide said on LinkedIn. “I feel immensely lucky to have been a part of the TikTok story.”

McQuaide said that during her time at the company, she helped to build and lead the global comms team with 40 people in 13 time zones “who trusted me as their direct manager.”

“In 2017, I never thought accepting a crisis comms consulting gig for musical.ly would eventually turn into leading global comms for a company that would face such intense global scrutiny and also mean so much to people the world over,” she said on LinkedIn.

McQuaide (used with permission)

Last summer, TikTok named former longtime Disney communications leader Zenia Mucha as its chief brand and communications officer. McQuaide reported to Mucha. 

A TikTok representative was not available for comment on McQuaide’s departure or plans to replace her.

Earlier in her career, McQuaide led communications at the apps Yik Yak and Dropbox.

McQuaide was on PRWeek’s Innovation 50 list in 2015 and has been a PRWeek Power List honoree several times, most recently in 2022.  

McQuaide is leaving TikTok as the platform faces an uncertain future. This week, the short-form video app sued the U.S. government over a law that would force Chinese parent ByteDance to sell the app or face a national ban. Last month, President Joe Biden signed legislation giving ByteDance nine months to find a buyer for TikTok, with a three month extension if a deal is in progress.