Kakao to Soon Issue Public Apology... CEO Namgung Hoon Likely to Resign

View of Kakao Pangyo Ajit in Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Namgung Hoon and Hong Euntaek, co-CEOs of Kakao, will issue a public apology on the 19th.

Kakao announced that it will hold an emergency press conference at 11 a.m. at its Pangyo headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. Both CEOs, Namgung Hoon and Hong Euntaek, will appear at the press conference.

On the day of the data center fire accident on the 15th, Kakao had already released an apology statement under the names of the two CEOs, but this is the first time the two CEOs will appear in person.

Meanwhile, SK Inc. C&C announced that power supply to the Pangyo data center was fully restored from early morning on the same day. Until the previous day, the power supply rate to the data center had recovered up to 95%, but considering Kakao’s server power supply rate alone, which houses about 32,000 servers in the data center, it was still insufficient.

With the power supply rate to the data center fully restored to 100% on this day, it seems highly likely that many of Kakao’s services will be fully recovered as early as the same day.

Who is CEO Namgung Hoon

Known as the 'right-hand man' of Kakao founder Kim Beom-su, CEO Namgung has had a relationship with Kim for over 20 years. Born in 1972, he graduated from Sogang University with a degree in Business Administration and met Kim when he joined Samsung SDS in 1997. At that time, there was a booming venture startup scene in Korea, and Kim left the company a year later with dreams of founding a game company and opened a PC bang. Namgung joined him, and the two became partners.

Namgung served as head of the communications division at 'Hangame,' a game portal founded by Kim and others in 1999, effectively acting as a founding member. He also participated when Hangame merged with Navercom and relaunched as 'NHN' in 2000, and in 2006, he took charge of NHN’s Korean game business. By this time, he was already recognized as a first-generation online game entrepreneur in Korea.

His career has not always been at its peak. After leaving NHN, Namgung served as CEO of CJ Internet in 2009 but resigned after failing to renew the rights for 'Sudden Attack,' a popular domestic game at the time. He later served as CEO of Wemade Entertainment and reunited with founder Kim in 2016 when he became co-CEO of Kakao Games.

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