Mr. Jihoon Rim, executive advisor and former CEO at Kakao and Adjunct Professor at NYU Stern School of Business, shared his experiences as the leader of Kakao, the most widely used mobile platform in Korea. This engaging discussion was moderated by Ms. Minnie Roh, CUNY TV’s news correspondent on Asian American Life.
The Korea Society Young Professionals’ Night program consists of industry professionals who share their career experiences and advice with the audience. It provides a wonderful opportunity for networking, and all professionals seeking to expand their careers are encouraged to come.
Young Professionals' Night
A Conversation with Jihoon Rim, former CEO of Kakao
Thursday, September 19, 2019 | 6 PM
The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017
Speaker
Jihoon Rim is executive advisor and former CEO of Kakao (KRX:035720), a top-tier technology company in South Korea that is well known for its mobile messenger Kakao Talk, music streaming service Melon, and ride hailing service Kakao Taxi among many successful Internet products the company services. After finishing his term, Jihoon moved to New York City and teaches a newly created course "Managing a High-tech company" at NYU Stern." While he was leading the company, Kakao successfully expanded its business into finance, contents, and mobility: disrupting the market and delivering services praised by users. Jihoon also heavily invested in Artificial Intelligence and technology, making Kakao the best mobile platform in Korea. The company's revenue and operating profit doubled during his two and a half years term and acquisition of $1.6B LOEN Entertainment was evaluated as one of the best M&As in Korean tech industry. In recognition of his stellar performance, Jihoon was ranked No.1 in “2017 Korea’s Best CEO” survey, and also was selected as "2018 Korea’s Top 10 Hero" by the biggest business media group, MBN. In academia, he received the "AIS leadership award", a prize presented to one person a year who demonstrated exemplary leadership and innovation by the Association for Information Systems. Prior to Kakao, Jihoon founded an early stage venture capital, KCube Ventures in 2012. The firm quickly grew to become one of the most reputable VC firms in Korea and was also ranked #7 by CBInsights in the category of '2017, The most active corporate venture' in the world. (KCube Ventures was acquired by Kakao in 2015 and became a CVC.) Jihoon also worked at Softbank Ventures, The Boston Consulting Group, Naver, and Accenture. He has an engineering degree from KAIST.
Moderator
Minnie Roh is an award-winning veteran journalist. Her career has spanned both network and local television as an investigative producer, reporter and anchor. Currently, she is a correspondent on the syndicated show Asian American Life and was nominated for a NY Emmy award for her story on the Comfort Women of World War II. She covers stories that are important to the Asian American community, from human and sex trafficking exploitation, affirmative action and deportation of undocumented immigrants to profiles of Olympic medalists, Broadway stars and NASA astronauts. Roh started her career in network news, working on shows like the Today Show, Nightly News and Dateline NBC where she specialized in investigative/hidden camera stories and received two Edward R. Murrow awards for her investigative reporting. Roh is also a media and communications consultant. Her company Minnie Media and Productions specializes in thoughtful profile pieces and impactful marketing segments for her clients – nonprofit organizations, international businesses and politicians. She has served as a senior advisor to the President of Arirang TV, South Korea’s only English news and entertainment channel, during its rebranding process and trained the reporters and anchors in the “western style” of broadcast journalism. She is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.
