[아주 돋보기] “From the soil spoon to the chairman of Kakao”… A biography of Chairman Beomsoo Kim giving back 5 trillion won to society

This is what Kakao Chairman Kim Bum-soo said in 2017. From this time on, did you have in mind giving back to society?

Chairman Kim, the nation’s third stock-rich, promised to give back half of his fortune to society. It is about 5 trillion won on the 9th. Chairman Kim is the first Korean entrepreneur to return the assets of several trillion won to society.

In a New Year’s message to employees of Kakao headquarters and affiliates on the 8th, Chairman Kim said, “I made a pledge to donate more than half of my assets to solve social problems while living in the future. In times of turbulence, social problems intensify in various fields. As I witnessed that, I thought that I should not delay my decision anymore. We are also pushing for an appropriate donation pledge so that that commitment can become an official promise.”

He said, “I’m just starting to think about how to use it concretely,” he said. “I will find and support people to solve social problems in areas that are difficult for Kakao to approach.”

Chairman Kim owns 12.5 million shares of Kakao as of the second half of last year. His private corporation, K Cube Holdings’ Kakao shares (99.4 million shares) totals about 1.12 trillion won. It means donating at least 5 trillion won or more with stock alone. In March of last year, he also released 11,000 shares (worth about 2 billion won) to use it for damage recovery from the spread of Corona 19.

Chairman Kim seems to have solidified his will for giving back to society at the end of last year. At the time, he instructed his aides to find out how he planned to return 1 trillion won to society. This message embodies Chairman Kim’s will to give back to society.

Chairman Kim has consistently emphasized that he will run Kakao as a professional manager rather than succeeding to his children.

However, in January, in a difficult time, he gave 330,000 shares (worth about 145 billion won) of Kakao stocks to his wife, children, and relatives as a reward to his family who supported him. Regarding this, some media have raised suspicion that Chairman Kim is working on the basis for succession to his child.

Accordingly, it is interpreted that Chairman Kim announced that he would give back half of the stocks to society and indirectly revealed that he had no intention of succession.

From the past, Chairman Kim has emphasized corporate social responsibility (ESG) and’social impact’. Social impact refers to a company growing together while solving social problems using innovative ideas and technologies. “The most efficient organization that can continuously change society,” he said.

Accordingly, in 2018, he established Kakao Impact, a social contribution foundation, and served as the chairman.

According to the IT industry, it is known that Chairman Kim will not return his assets in the form of donations to social organizations or charities. Rather, it is expected to gather experts who can solve social problems according to the values ​​they pursue and give back their wealth in the form of sponsorship.

First, after reviewing the project proposals of experts to solve social problems, it is expected that the shared office and financial support will be provided so that they can work. He explained that if a project that can solve social problems is found, then Chairman Kim will return half of his fortune by disposing of stocks to provide funding. Like the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, how to establish a charity and then run it is also being discussed.

Prior to this promise to give back, Chairman Kim made steady donations to his alma mater, Konkuk Ambassador’s High School, Ashoka Korea, Culture and Arts Social Contribution Network, Game Human Resources Foundation, and city programs.

Chairman Kim is a representative figure who made wealth through self-made even in difficult circumstances. Born as the eldest son of two sons and three daughters in 1966 between his parents who went to Tokyo while farming in Damyang, Jeollanam-do, Chairman Kim had a difficult time when he was young enough to live in a one-room house for eight family members, including his grandmother.

After graduating from Konkuk University’s high school in 1986, Chairman Kim obtained a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Seoul National University in 1990 and a master’s degree from the same graduate school in 1992. He studied hard by chopping his fingers and writing blood to prevent his will from shaking while luckily for college entrance. However, during his tenure at Hangame and Kakao, Chairman Kim was famous for being a gentle CEO who did not only force his will on his employees. He seems to be a’Kwan-in-eom-gi’ type character who is generous to others and strict to himself.

Chairman Kim entered college and immersed himself in table games such as go-stop, poker, billiards, and Go as a reward for his difficult times. However, even this later served as a core experience in his founding Hangame.

After obtaining his master’s degree, he joined Samsung Data Systems (now Samsung SDS). Here, I met Lee Hae-jin, Naver founder and Global Investment Officer (GIO), who will plan a business together in the future, and Nam Gung-hun, CEO of Kakao Games.

Afterwards, he fell in love with StarCraft, which hit Korea, and founded’Mission No. 1′, a PC room of the largest scale in Korea at the time in front of Hanyang University. Here he has an experience that will change his fate. It was a PC room that stood at the forefront of digital, but I realized that the operation still remained analog, such as writing the usage time by hand. You have found a business opportunity.

Accordingly, after leaving the company he worked for, Chairman Kim left the PC room operation to his wife, Hyung Mi-sun, and he devoted himself to developing a PC room operation program. Afterwards, he founded the game portal’Hangame’ in 1999 by working with CEO Nam Gung-hoon, who was a junior of the company.

Based on Chairman Kim’s idea of ​​running table games directly on the web and PC room operation program created by Chairman Kim, Hangame has gathered 10 million members within one year and six months of establishment, and has grown rapidly into a representative game portal in Korea. CEO Nam Gung-hoon was in charge of sales of the games and programs made in this way to PC cafes nationwide.

Since then, Hangame merged with Navercom, created by GIO Lee Haejin, and reborn as NHN (Naver·Hangame·eNtoi). The two co-managed NHN and listed NHN on the KOSDAQ in 2002. With the support of Hangame, Naver was soon able to grow into the largest portal in Korea.

Lee Jang Kim, who assumed the role of NHN’s representative in 2004, later showed a disagreement with GIO Hae Jin Lee on management. So, after taking over as an overseas branch of NHN, he eventually broke up with GIO Lee Hae-jin and left NHN in 2009 to go to the United States with children.

Afterwards, Chairman Kim realized that working alone was not a good thing, and he toured the world with his children. He was faithful to his role as a father, spending the night in a PC room with his children and playing games. He said the best memory of his break even now was breaking Blizzard’s game Diablo with his family.

After taking a break, Chairman Kim strives to run the startup’I We Lab’, which he founded when he served as an outside director of NHN. IweLab, a startup with 10 employees, developed various mobile apps for four years, and then grew rapidly with the success of the mobile messenger’KakaoTalk’, developed by Kim’s inspiration after seeing the iPhone.

KakaoTalk, launched in March 2010, gathered 30,000 subscribers within one day of launch, and reached 1 million subscribers after 6 months, succeeding in preoccupying the domestic mobile market. Accordingly, Chairman Kim changed the company name from iWe Lab to Kakao and started the mobile business in earnest.

Later, based on Kakao Talk, it expanded its business from mobile to O2O, fintech, and mobility, and entered the KOSDAQ market in October 2014 by acquiring Daum Communications.

While running Kakao, Chairman Kim communicated with employees in an informal and comfortable manner, and tried to create a free corporate atmosphere by allowing all employees to speak in English by name. Kakao’s unique corporate culture, created by Chairman Kim, served as a driving force for rapid communication between organizations while Kakao continued to conduct mergers and acquisitions and expand its business. Chairman Kim was not satisfied with this and established and operated the Kakao Community Center for collaboration and communication among affiliates.

Chairman Kim elected former K Cube Ventures CEO Ji-hoon Lim as Kakao’s representative in August 2015 and stepped down from the front line of management. As the chairman of the Kakao Board of Directors, he focused on presenting the future directions of various Kakao affiliates and bringing out cooperative synergy among affiliates.

CEO Lim relocated the company to KOSPI, and continued to acquire and merge various companies including Loen Entertainment (Melon), raising the company’s business. However, it was evaluated that the company’s operating margin fell to less than 10% or the company’s operating profit margin fell to less than 10%, and that although Kakao’s size was raised, it was not able to improve its profitability.

Accordingly, in January 2018, Chairman Kim entrusted Kakao as co-representative of Kakao to Yeo Min-soo, vice president of advertising business division and Cho Soo-yong, vice president of Community Brand Center. This is because Kakao, which has expanded its business areas to finance and B2B, needs a new leader in order to strengthen its bottom line by expanding its operating margin and listing affiliates.

Afterwards, Kakao was designated as a corporate group (large corporation group) restricted by mutual investment by the Fair Trade Commission in May 2019, with total assets exceeding 10 trillion won. This is the first case in which a domestic IT startup has been reborn as a large corporate group. Chairman Kim was also designated the same person (the total number of large companies). Chairman Kim was also selected as the person with the fastest increase in wealth (1 trillion won → 10 trillion won) among those who owned more than 1 trillion won in corporate stocks in Korea.