Rim Jihoon (born September 28, 1980) is a visiting professor of management practice in the Department of Management and Organizations at

New York University Stern School of Business The Leonard N. Stern School of Business (also NYU Stern, Stern School of Business, or simply Stern) is the business school of New York University, a private research university based in New York City. Founded as the School of Commerce, Accounts ...

. He is a former CEO of Kakao (KRX:035720), a South Korean technology company known for its mobile messenger Kakao Talk. His appointment as CEO 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 from the

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology KAIST (originally the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) is a national university, national research university located in Daedeok Innopolis, Daejeon, South Korea. KAIST was established by the Korean government in 1971 as the ...

(KAIST) and received the Industrial Engineering Best Graduate Award. He began his career at

Accenture Accenture plc is a global multinational professional services company originating in the United States and headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, that specializes in information technology (IT) services and management consulting. It was founded in 1 ...

, then moved on to

Naver Naver (; stylized as NAVER) is a South Korean online platform operated by the Naver Corporation. The company's products include a search engine, email hosting, blogs, maps, and mobile payment. History Naver was the first Korean web provide ...

, South Korea's most-visited online search engine, before joining

Boston Consulting Group Boston Consulting Group, Inc. (BCG) is an American global management consulting firm founded in 1963 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the "Big Three (management consultancies), Big Three" (or MBB, the world's three large ...

and later, Softbank Ventures in Seoul. Prior to Kakao, Rim founded K Cube Ventures in 2012, which became one of the most reputable VC firms in South Korea. The inaugural $10M fund returned more than $1B+, being recognized as the best performed (100X+, 10-year IRR ~70%) VC fund ever in South Korea. The Asian Venture Capital Journal published
profile on professor Rim
in October 2020. Professor Rim also started a philanthropic non-profit organization
The Jihoon Rim Foundation
to support young students by granting scholarships.

Kakao

During his tenure as CEO of Kakao, Rim successfully expanded the company's business into finance, content, mobility and invested heavily in artificial intelligence. The company's company's revenue and operating income doubled during his two-and-a-half-year term. Acquisition of $1.6B LOEN Entertainment was evaluated as one of the best M&As in South Korea's tech industry. He received numerous accolades for his leadership and performance, including being ranked No.1 in "2017 Korea's Best CEO" survey and being selected as "2018 Korea's Top 10 Hero" by the

Maeil Broadcasting Network Maeil Broadcasting Network, Inc. (MBN) (주식회사 매일방송) is a South Korean cable TV network operated by the ''Maeil Business Newspaper The Maeil Business Newspaper (), also simply known as Maekyung (derived from the pronunciatio ...

. In academia, he received the "AIS Leadership Award", a prize presented by the

Association for Information Systems The Association for Information Systems (AIS) is an international, Not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit, professional association for scholars of Information system#As an academic discipline, information systems that was established in 1994 ...

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 (K Cube Ventures was acquired by Kakao in 2015 and became a CVC.) The inaugural $10M fund returned more than $1B+, being recognized as the best performed (100X+, 10-year IRR ~70%) VC fund evern in South Korea.

NYU Stern School of Business

Professor Rim joined NYU Stern School of Business in 2019 and teaches two of the most highly regarded MBA elective courses: Managing a High-Tech Company and Founding a Startup. He also teaches at TRIUM, a global EMBA run by NYU Stern, London School of Economics, and HEC Paris.

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

(MBN) selects and announces "Korea's Top 10 Heros", a total of ten people who are recognized as top achievers in their field (acting, sport, business, government, etc.).

Talks (videos)

* Harvard Undergraduate KORUM
Fireside Chat
Spring 2021 *NYU Stern
Fubon Center's Fireside Chat
Fall 2020 *Podcast Stern Chats
The Youngest Major CEO in South Korea
Fall 2020 *Harvard Asia Business Conference, HBS, Keynote, 2020 Spring * NYU Stern Digital Innovation Conference
Platform Strategy
Plenary Talk, 2019 Fall * The Korea Society (think tank in NYC)
Fireside Chat
2019 Fall * International Conference on Information Systems, Keynote, 2017
AIS Leadership Excellence Award - Kakao
* Wall Street Journal, DLive, Plenary Talk, 2017:
Future of Messenger: Kakao & Hike

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rim, Ji-hoon 1980 births Living people South Korean businesspeople Kakao KAIST alumni Businesspeople from Seoul