[News Figures] SK Group's First Female CEO 'An Jung-eun', E-commerce Expert

Joined 11st in 2018 after Naver and Coupang... First Challenge for Next Year's IPO Success

An Jung-eun Appointed as New CEO of 11st / Photo by 11st

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Juhyung] SK Group has produced its first female CEO through its year-end regular executive appointments. The protagonist who earned the title of SK's first 'female CEO' since its founding is An Jung-eun, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the online shopping mall 11st. An, a designated executive, is an e-commerce expert who has worked at Yahoo, Naver, and Coupang, and directly planned several popular services that 11st recently launched successfully.

According to SK Group on the 2nd, 11st appointed COO An as the new CEO through the regular executive appointments. An is expected to officially take office as co-CEO alongside President Ha Hyung-il after the board of directors' approval.

E-commerce expert with experience at Naver and Coupang... also planned next-day delivery service 'Shooting Delivery'

An is an e-commerce expert who has worked in the IT industry for the past 22 years. She began her internet business career by joining Yahoo Korea in 2000, served as the head of service planning at Naver in 2003, was the Product Owner (PO) director at Coupang in 2011, head of e-service planning at LF Mall in 2016, and joined 11st in 2018. That was the year 11st separated from SK Telecom and launched as an independent corporation.

11st Next-Day Delivery Service 'Shooting Delivery' / Photo by 11st Homepage Capture

As an e-commerce planner who has led major projects at companies representing the domestic e-commerce industry today, An's expertise is reflected in many of 11st's services. For example, the overseas direct purchase service Amazon Global Store, established in cooperation with the global e-commerce company Amazon, and 'Ggukgguk,' a service that creates and shares product reviews in video format, were developed under An's leadership. Since her appointment as COO earlier this year, she has participated in planning new services such as the next-day delivery service 'Shooting Delivery' and the MyData service 'Money Han Jan.'

In particular, Shooting Delivery is regarded as a key growth driver that led to 11st's profit improvement. As of the third quarter of this year, the transaction amount of Shooting Delivery increased 3.9 times compared to the previous quarter, the average monthly number of customers increased by 46%, and the purchase amount per customer increased by 166%. During the same period, 11st recorded sales of 189.9 billion KRW, up 34% (48.1 billion KRW) from the previous quarter.

11st's successful IPO next year is the first challenge

The first challenge An faces as CEO is to lead 11st's initial public offering (IPO) to success. When 11st was established as a new corporation in 2018, it attracted 500 billion KRW in investment from private equity fund H&Q Korea, the National Pension Service, and Saemaeul Geumgo, among others, with a commitment to go public within five years. Therefore, the IPO must be completed within next year.

To prevent investors from incurring losses, 11st must achieve a market capitalization of at least 3 trillion KRW. Four years ago, at the time of investment attraction, investors estimated 11st's off-market corporate value at 2.7 trillion KRW.

The variable is the unstable stock market situation due to high inflation and economic recession. While President Ha's main task is to maximize 11st's corporate value ahead of the listing, An must secure corporate competitiveness to support this.