MBK's Lee listed among Forbes' power Asia businesswomen

MBK Partners' first female partner Lee In-kyung has made it to the list of Forbes Asia's 20 power businesswomen published in its November issue. Forbes on Nov. 1 announced its 2021 Asia’s Power Businesswomen list of 20 female business leaders in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Lee, 53, is the only woman among MBK's current 13 partners and has the additional responsibilities as chief financial officer of the firm. She is in charge of communicating with over 80 limited partners as head of limited partner relations at the buyout firm.

"Lee is one of the few women in the upper echelons of the ultra-competitive private equity world in South Korea," Forbes said.

In January last year, Lee became a partner at MBK Partners, one of the largest homegrown buyout firms in Asia with $24 billion in assets under management, headed by billionaire Michael ByungJu Kim.

She joined MBK in 2006, a year after it was founded and when it had only $1.6 billion in AUM.

She played a key role in improving the private equity firm's governance and risk management. 

According to research firm Preqin, only 4.6% of senior employees at private equity firms in South Korea are women.

“There are very few women partners in Korea, even in Asia,” Lee told Forbes in a video interview. “I feel a responsibility to do well so that I could open the door to other women working in private equity.” Lee was quoted as saying.

After graduating from Seoul National University's department of economics, she worked at Deloitte's Seoul office and served as a CFO at Morgan Stanley Properties in South Korea.

In the male-dominated PE industry, calls are growing for increasing women's participation in the decision-making process for a balanced approach to risk management and investment.

Among the 20 women on the list, another South Korean Kim Seon-hee, CEO of Maeil Dairies Co., was named one of Asia's 20 power businesswomen.

Others on the list include Keiko Erikawa, executive chairman of Japan's largest video-game developer Koei Tecmo and Meena Ganesh, co-founder and chairman of Portea Medical, India’s largest home healthcare company.

Write to Jun-ho Cha at chacha@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.