Web 2.0 Asia :: Korea's leading games company... turning into a family business?

Korea's leading games company... turning into a family business?

Other | 2008/11/05 14:38 | Web 2.0 Asia

Songyee Yoon is little known outside of Korea, but she's quite a figure in the nation. She became the youngest VP at SK Telecom, a huge telco, at a mere age of 28. This was after getting her PhD from MIT at 24 and working at McKinsey. (Hey, what the heck was I doing at 24?)

Think of her as Korea's Marissa Mayer - the two share many traits such as being smart, good looking, and being on the fast lane at a successful tech company.

Now, add to that "having dated with a founder of a $1bn+ company" - Marissa with Larry, Songyee with NC Soft founder/CEO TJ Kim. (NC Soft is Korea's leading online games company, famous for its Lineage online MMORPG games.) Perhaps a difference there is that Songyee eventually got the ring, while Marissa didn't yet. (Songyee and TJ Kim got married in fall last year.)

With the inks on their nuptual agreements barely dry, Yoon is coming on board at her husband's company, NC Soft, as Chief Strategy Officer. Yoon has thick grey matters, no doubt about it, but I don't know if NC Soft and Yoon, whose specialty lies in artificial intelligence, can be the best fit. Besides, Yoon's joining the company essentailly makes NC Soft a family business (doesn't it?), and I don't think I have seen that many successful internet companies that are essentially family businesses.

I'm just hoping the couple, both super smart, will let the creativities of other NC-ers blossom as well as flexing their own creative muscles. Last thing they want is to create two hurdles to overcome/convince, instead of just one.