Naver's Choi In-hyeok Leaves Company... Resigns as Happybean CEO

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] Choi In-hyuk, former Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Naver, who faced accountability issues related to an employee death caused by workplace harassment at Naver, has resigned from his position as CEO of Naver Financial as well as from the CEO position at the Happy Bean Foundation. With this, former COO Choi has stepped down from all positions related to Naver.

According to Naver on the 18th, former COO Choi recently informed the company of his intention to resign as CEO of Happy Bean and officially stepped down. Yoo Bong-seok, Vice President in charge of Service Operations, was appointed as his successor.

Former CEO Choi joined Naver in 1999 as a founding member. He is known as a close associate of Lee Hae-jin, Global Investment Officer (GIO) and founder, having worked together since their time at Samsung SDS.

Once considered a strong candidate for the next Naver CEO, Choi stepped down from all headquarters positions, including COO, registered director, and head of the advertising business division Biz CIC, last May following the employee death incident caused by workplace harassment.

At that time, the Naver labor union claimed, "There is evidence that former COO Choi and other executives were aware of the problem but neglected it," urging Choi to resign from all positions at Naver.

Subsequently, former COO Choi maintained executive roles at affiliates such as CEO of Naver Financial and CEO of the Happy Bean Foundation for a while, but ultimately relinquished all posts with his resignation from the Happy Bean Foundation CEO position.

Meanwhile, the new CEO of Happy Bean, Yoo Bong-seok, graduated from Yonsei University with a degree in Economics. After working as a reporter for Maeil Business Newspaper, he joined Naver in 2007 and has served as head of the Media Center and in charge of Service Operations.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.