Han Seong-sook

In Naver, Han Seong-sook would begin a history of peculiar ascent not only because she was a woman in a country where only 19% of women are founders of a company and less than 2.5% are chief operating officers. Han also has the peculiarity of not having training in a technological career.

Since joining Naver, Han influenced the company’s decisions that turned it into a content platform with live streaming, webtoon, novels, TV, blogging, and e-commerce.

In March 2017, Han Seong-sook broke the glass ceiling by becoming the first woman in South Korea to run a technology company by being appointed as Naver’s Chief Operating Officer in place of Kim Sang-hun, who was during eight years in the position and became part of the company’s board.

Shortly after he took control of the company, the Korean media criticized Naver for a news-editing scandal and accused users that they were cheating the system so that the search engine would optimize their opinions. From this conflict, Han decided to pivot the company for a system similar to Google.

Han Seong-sook launched a mobile payment service and the V Live streaming music application. Thanks to the success of K-Pop stars, V Live has gained popularity in Southeast Asia. Since Han took office, Naver has expanded its market and has invested $ 467 million in the development of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and other state-of-the-art technologies, such as autonomous cars.