Millennial woman takes reins as Naver CEO

South Korea's dominant online platform Naver Corp. on Monday entered a new chapter in its 22-year history under a new millennial leader, whose priority is restoring the corporate culture based on trust and autonomy. 

Choi Soo-yeon, 40, was appointed Naver's chief executive officer at an annual general meeting on March 14.

"I will not only accelerate growth in various business areas, but also create new opportunities through business convergence to achieve a market value commensurate with them," she said at the AGM. 

The M&A lawyer-turned-CEO is expected to inject a breath of fresh air into the portal giant, which is looking to expand into Southeast Asia, Europe and North America to become a global platform spanning shopping to entertainment. 

While her predecessors, including founder and Global Investment Officer (GIO) Lee Hae-jin, will be dedicated to global expansion, Choi said her first task as CEO is improving the corporate culture. 

"As CEO now, I believe my mission is to take on a much bigger challenge," she told shareholders. "To take a leap forward, our most urgent task is to recover Naver's corporate culture based on trust and autonomy." 

Her immediate predecessor Han Seong-sook stepped down one year and four months before the end of her term, taking responsibility for the death of an ex-senior developer at Naver. The former employee killed himself in May of last year after allegedly suffering bullying and harassment in the workplace.

After being tapped as new CEO last November, Choi had face-to-face meetings with 400 employees and listened to their views on Naver's structural problems and their suggestions to resolve them. 

Following her studies of earth and environmental sciences at Seoul National University's college of engineering, she worked for the public relations and marketing teams of NHN, the predecessor of Naver, between 2005 and 2009.

She went on to Yonsei University Law School and Harvard Law School. Working as a lawyer at one of South Korea's leading law firms Yulchon, she specialized in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets and corporate governance.

She returned to Naver in 2019 and spearheaded its global expansion, under its founder and GIO Lee.

 
"This leadership change means a generational transition for Naver: The first-generation leaders who started with founder Lee Hae-jin have handed over the leadership to the next generation," said an IT industry official.

Choi's appointment as CEO marked the company's most drastic top management reshuffle yet. The ex-M&A lawyer is expected to drive the online portal's expansion not only into other sectors but also abroad. 

E-COMMERCE BUSINESS IN SPAIN

Her two predecessors Han and Lee will focus on global expansion. With GIO Lee leading Naver's expansion in Japan, Han will fly to France in the first half of this year to launch its online shopping platform Smart Store in Europe.

Lee has been involved in the management of its joint venture with SoftBank Corp., A Holdings, which takes control of Yahoo Japan and Naver’s LINE Corp., Japan’s top messaging app.

Naver has been ramping up investments in Europe's startups in search of potential strategic partners, through the K-Fund, run by French venture capital firm Korelya Capital.

Last year, Naver acquired Spanish virtual marketplace Wallapop for €115 million to gain a foothold in the growing European e-commerce market.

In the metaverse digital space, the number of subscribers to Naver's 3-D avatar app Zepeto recently exceeded 300 million.

For entertainment, the Netflix original All of Us Are Dead, based on Naver's intellectual property, was recently ranked as the OTT service's most-viewed drama series.

Shares in Naver closed unchanged at 329,000 won on Monday, down 29% from its all-time high of 465,000 won reached in July of last year.

Write to Min-Ki Koo, So-Hyun Lee and Joo-Wan Kim at kook@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.