Kim Beom-su, the founder of Kakao, is currently the Chairman of the Management Innovation Committee of Kakao, the Vice Chairman of Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), the Chairman of the board of Korea National Opera.

After graduating from graduate school in industrial engineering at Seoul National University in 1992, Kim joined Samsung SDS looking for a job where he could work with computers. In 1994, he joined the task force created by Samsung SDS to enter the PC communication industry and launched PC communication Unitel in January 1996.

Early on, he predicted the rise of Windows in the computer industry and studied Windows intensively, and based on this, he designed and developed Unitel’s exclusive access program called UniWin optimized for the Windows environment. While working on the Unitel team, he was involved in all aspects of program development, planning, promotion, and marketing.

He decided to start his own company after an event organized by Samsung Electronics, which was selected as a partner company for the 1997 Olympic Games, became so popular that he had the idea to create a game that could be played by networked people in the Internet world. After leaving his job, he opened a large PC room in front of Hanyang University in June 1998 as a test bed for his game and to raise funds for stable development. As the PC room business became successful and a stable source of funding, he founded Han Game Communication in November 1998 and focused on game development.

He launched Korea’s first game portal, Han Game, on December 1, 1999, and within three months of its launch, it surpassed 1 million subscribers. It was the world’s first Windows-based Internet game, with sound and graphics handled by a client server and the game itself running on the web. The market response was overwhelming, and the company couldn’t keep up with the growing number of subscribers.

In 2000, he decided to merge with Naver Com, the fifth largest portal site at the time, and in July 2000, Naver Com merged with HanGame, OneQ, and Search Solution. He served as co-chairman along with Lee Hae-jin, and after the first year of the merger, the company rose to No. 3 in the portal industry after Yahoo Korea.

However, when the dot-com bubble burst in the winter of 2000, the company needed a revenue model, so in March 2001, it implemented freemium for online games. The profits from HanGame were used to develop the Naver search engine, and by 2003, Naver was the number one portal in Korea.

Founded in September 2000, Han Game Japan became the No. 1 game portal in Japan in December 2003, making it the first Korean IT company to enter the Japanese market. On December 30, 2003, Kim was appointed as the sole CEO of NHN (which changed its name from Naver Com in September 2001), and in 2005, he established NHN USA and began developing the U.S. market. In 2006, he stepped down as CEO of NHN and became the head of the U.S. subsidiary. NHN USA arrived in the U.S. market in May 2007 with the official launch of the game portal Easy.com.

In December 2006, while he was CEO of NHN USA, he founded IWILAB in California, USA. The company, which means “laboratory” in Korean, was a venture that experimented with various Internet services. Kim, who became a successful entrepreneur in Korea, but found more joy in imagining and creating things than in running a company, left NHN in July 2007 and set out to create a new Internet business.

Focusing on the communication capabilities of smartphones, Kim launched the messaging app KakaoTalk in March 2010. KakaoTalk surpassed 1 million subscribers in September 2010, just six months after its launch. In June 2012, KakaoTalk surpassed 50 million subscribers and became the nation’s messenger. In September 2010, IWILAB changed its name to Kakao.

With enough users, Kakao started building a full-fledged platform in 2012, moving away from a simple messenger service. In July 2012, Kakao launched Kakao Game and launched national games such as Anipang and Cookie Run, and succeeded in turning a profit. In 2013, Kakao launched Kakao Page, a service for webtoons and web novels. Based on the huge number of members, Kakao began to explore revenue models in various areas such as commerce, content, and O2O. In line with its initial vision of “connect everything,” Kakao focused on connecting consumers and various fields, rather than creating and servicing itself.

Although Kakao was the number one messenger, it needed additional services such as content and search to create a revenue model. In October 2014, it merged with Korea’s second-largest portal, Daum Communications, to acquire a wide range of content. In March 2016, it continued its bold acquisition spree by acquiring Korea’s No. 1 music content company, LOEN Entertainment. In 2016, Kakao’s annual revenue exceeded 1 trillion won for the first time, driven by games, music, and content. Having learned that good intellectual property (IP) grows markets and platforms together, Kakao is actively investing to grow with creators and increase the value of its IP.

Kim is constantly exploring technology trends. In 2017, as AI emerged as a mainstream trend, he founded Kakao Brain and served as its CEO, and in 2018, he founded GroundX, a blockchain affiliate. In 2019, he founded Kakao Enterprise, which provides solutions for businesses based on Kakao’s AI technology and service operation know-how.

Personal history:

▲Mar. 27. 1966 = born in Seoul

▲1990 = graduated from Seoul National University with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering

▲1992 = graduated from Seoul National University with a master’s degree in industrial engineering

▲Mar 1992 ~ Feb. 1998 = entered Samsung SDS

▲Nov. 1998 = Established Han Game Communication

▲Jul. 2000 = Appointed to the co-president of Naver Com acquiring firm

▲Nov. 2001 = Appointed to the co-president of NHN(사명변경)

▲Jan. 2004 = Appointed to the president of NHN

▲Jan. 2007 = Appointed to the president of NHN USA

▲Oct. 2007 = Appointed to the chairman of the board of IWILAB

▲Sep. 2010 = Appointed to the chairman of the board of Kakao

▲Jul. 2011 = Appointed to civilian committee member of the Presidential Council on Intellectual Property

▲Sep. 2014 = Appointed to the chairman of the board of Daum Kakao

▲Mar. 2016 = Appointed to the first president of Startup Campus

▲Feb. 2017 = Appointed to the president and internal director of Kakao Brain

▲Nov. 2017 = Appointed to the internal director of Kakao Piccoma

▲Apr. 2018 = Established Kakao Impact foundation and appointed to the chairman of the board

▲Feb. 2020 = Appointed to Kakao Future Initiative Center

▲Feb. 2021 = appointed to the Vice Chairman of Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI)

▲Jun. 2021 = Established Brian Impact Foundation and appointed to the chairman of the board

▲Mar. 2022 = Resigned as the chairman of Kakao

▲Aug. 2023 = Appointed to the Chairman of the board of Korea National Opera

▲Nov. 2023 = Appointed to the Chairman of the Management Innovation Committee of Kakao