Rim Jihoon is an executive advisor and former CEO of Kakao], a South Korean technology company which is most well known for its mobile messenger Kakao Talk]. His appointment in August 2015, at 34 years of age, made him the youngest CEO among South Korea's top 500 companies. Rim earned a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering and received the Industrial Engineering Best Graduate Award from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. He started his career at Accenture and moved on to Naver, South Korea's most-visited online search engine, before joining Boston Consulting Group and later, Softbank Ventures in Seoul. Prior to Kakao, Rim's most significant career was made along with his establishment of K Cube Ventures in 2012, which grew into one of the most reputable VC firms in South Korea. After resigning in January 2018, Rim moved to New York and is teaching at NYU, Stern School of Business starting in 2019.
Kakao
Rim was acknowledged for successfully expanding Kakao's business into finance, content, mobility and investing heavily in artificial intelligence. During his two-and-a-half-year term, revenue and operating income of the company doubled. Acquisition of $1.6B LOEN Entertainment was evaluated as one of the best M&As in South Korea's tech industry. In recognition of his performance, Rim was ranked No.1 in "2017 Korea’s Best CEO” survey, and was also selected as "2018 Korea’s Top 10 Hero" by the Maeil Broadcasting Network In academia, he received the "AIS Leadership Award", a prize presented by the Association for Information Systems to one person a year who demonstrated exemplary leadership and innovation.
K Cube Ventures
Rim founded K Cube Ventures, an early stage venture capital in Korea in 2012. The firm quickly grew and became reputable enough to be ranked the 7th by CB Insights under the category of "2017, The most active 'corporate venture capital" in the world
Awards
The AIS Leadership Excellence Award: The Association for Information Systems Leadership Excellence Award is presented annually to an individual who has demonstrated exemplary leadership and innovation in the use and development of information systems.
2017 Korea's Best CEO: Rim was selected as Best CEO by Insight Korea. This was based on a survey done by a South Korean research group and votes cast by university/college students in South Korea. He got 12.6% of total votes, preceding JY Lee, vice chairman of Samsung Group who got 6.8% and ranked second.
Korea's Top 10 Hero:Every year, South Korea's Maeil Broadcasting Network selects and announces "Korea's Top 10 Heros", a total of ten people who are recognized as top achievers in their field.
