A top TikTok marketing exec is leaving to take a 'deliberate exhale'

• Sofia Hernandez, TikTok's global head of business marketing and commercial partnerships, is leaving.
• Hernandez oversaw TikTok's marketing strategy for brands and advertisers.
• Isobel Sita-Lumsden, a TikTok exec based in the UK, will take her place.

Sofia Hernandez, TikTok's global head of business marketing and commercial partnerships, is leaving the company, according to a memo sent by global business solutions lead Will Liu.

Hernandez worked at TikTok and ByteDance for nearly six years. She initially focused on marketing related to the company's advertising business before expanding her remit to include some consumer marketing. TikTok offers a broad array of ad tools for brands and marketers, and Hernandez oversaw the strategy for communicating its offering to clients.

Hernandez confirmed her exit in a Thursday morning LinkedIn post, saying that she was leaving the company to take a "deliberate exhale."

"Choosing to rest is not stepping out of the game," she wrote. "It takes clarity and confidence to step back long enough to recharge your body, reset your thinking, and expand your vision."

Prior to joining TikTok, Hernandez served as chief customer officer at the consumer-insights platform Suzy. Before that, she worked at a creative agency within Publicis Groupe.

Hernandez is being replaced by Isobel Sita-Lumsden, an exec in the UK who has focused on off-platform marketing partnerships and social, according to the memo.

"Sofia played a defining role in shaping our global go to market approach," Liu wrote in his memo. "This included expanding our presence across priority markets, and strengthening how brand, product and commercial teams work together."

Hernandez is the latest in a string of US executives to leave TikTok in the past year. About a year ago, advertising executive Blake Chandlee, who previously oversaw global business solutions, stepped down. Global business solutions is the term TikTok uses to describe its division that offers products for advertisers. In January, Kim Farrell, TikTok's global head of creators, left the company amid a reorganization of the company's content division.

Kate Jhaveri, TikTok's previous marketing head, left the company in late 2024. Former Disney executive Zenia Mucha took full oversight of the company's communications division following Jhaveri's departure.

Hernandez's exit comes at a moment of transition for TikTok, which recently split off parts of its US business into a joint venture. While some employees now work for a new US division overseen by managing investors like Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX, advertising and marketing workers remain under the oversight of ByteDance.

TikTok is projected to pull in around $18 billion in US ad revenue this year, according to an estimate from EMARKETER, Business Insider's sister company.