Who's Who of entrepreneurs and executives in the tech industry.
Kim Beom Su Brian Kakao Founder fundador 김범수 카카오

Kim Beom-su

Kim Beom-su is founder and chairman of Kakao, the most widely used messaging app in South Korea.

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Kim Beom-su : @kakaoteam

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//Education

• Seoul National University, Bachelor of Science in Engineering
• Seoul National University, Master of Science

//Early days

Kim Beom-su became one of the few self-made billionaires in Korea thanks to the love of video games and online communication. Kim created two companies from scratch: the first online games portal in South Korea (Hangame Communications) and the local messaging application KakaoTalk.

Kim was born in a low-income environment, in a family of eight with parents who didn’t finish elementary school. Kim was the first member of his family to go to university. Kim paid for his education with private tutoring classes.

Kim Beom-su’s first job was to develop an online communication service for Samsung. He left the company five years later to open an Internet café and develop online casino games. Its page attracted heavy traffic, and it merged with Naver, to become the leading web portal of Korea: NHN.

//Career

Kim Beom-su quit NHN’s safety to start a new venture. In 2007 Kim moved to Silicon Valley. When he was looking for new ideas, he was amazed by the iPhone. With a team of four people, he started developing applications for the iPhone before it arrived in Korea.

In 2010, Kim introduced Kakao, the instant messaging application that is now used by three-quarters of the population in Korea. In 2014, the company merged with Daum Communications, the main competitor of NHN.

Expanding to other markets has been difficult for the company. To internationalize its market, Kakao acquired Path, an American company that was succeeding in Asia.

//Distinctions

Nothing found

//Other facts

Kim Beom-su has become a popular speaker in Korea as he is one of the few billionaires who did not inherit his fortune. Kim Beom-su has a personal goal to help the development of 100 technological startups.

Kim Beom-su sees Korea’s rigid education system as a barrier to the development of the creative industries. He has preferred to send his children to study abroad because he is convinced that the next generations should think outside the box and not under pre-established schemes.

//Publications

Nothing found

//Other links

//Twitter

Kim Beom-su : @kakaoteam

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//From the same country

sophie kim
South Korea

Sophie Kim

Sophie Kim is a Korean entrepreneur and former Goldman Sachs analyst. She is CEO and founder of Market Kurly.

ceo of lg group Koo kwang-mo
South Korea

Koo Kwang-mo

Koo Kwang-mo is a Korean businessman, Chief Executive of LG Group.

hanseok
South Korea

Han Seong-sook

Han Seong-sook is the CEO of Naver, Korea’s top Internet portal and search company since 2017.