Major in Industrial Design... Connection with Pretzel Portal
Early Naver Member Designing 'Nokseongchang'
Exercised 450,000 Stock Options Upon Retirement in 2022
Cho Soo-yong, former co-CEO of Kakao, became the highest-paid entrepreneur last year. Upon leaving Kakao, he exercised stock options and received more than 30 billion KRW in compensation. Former co-CEO Yeo Min-soo ranked second after Cho.
On the 26th, CEO Score, a corporate data research institute, investigated the total individual compensation of 896 companies that disclosed salaries among 2,580 companies that submitted their 2022 business reports by the 23rd. It was found that a total of 2,072 entrepreneurs received more than 500 million KRW last year. This tally excluded only retirement income from the total compensation.
The entrepreneur who received the highest total compensation last year was Cho Soo-yong, former CEO of Kakao, who received 35.74 billion KRW. Former CEO Yeo received 33.184 billion KRW.
They each exercised stock options for 450,000 shares and 425,000 shares respectively when leaving Kakao in March last year. Cho’s stock option exercise gains last year amounted to 33.75 billion KRW, while Yeo’s reached 31.824 billion KRW.
Cho was born in Seoul in 1974. After graduating from the Graduate School of Industrial Design at Seoul National University in 1999, he began his career at Freechal. From 2003, he joined Naver as an early member and served as head of marketing and design.
He joined Kakao at the end of 2016 as Vice President in charge of brand design, then served as head of Kakao’s Community Brand Center, and was appointed CEO of Kakao in March 2018. Freechal was a portal site that started service in 1999 and ended in February 2013.
Cho is also known for designing Naver’s signature green search bar, which represents Naver’s identity. He also led the overall design of Naver’s headquarters, the Green Factory, and his works include Gwanghwamun D Tower, Nest Hotel in Yeongjongdo, and Glad Hotel in Yeouido. After leaving Naver in 2010, he founded the design company JOH and published the brand documentary magazine "Magazine B".
He received the Prime Minister’s Award in the Design Management Merit category at the Korea Design Awards in 2007, a Silver Award in the PR category at Cannes Creative for the Nanum Font campaign in 2010, and a Silver Award in the Design category at Cannes Creative for Magazine B in 2013.
Meanwhile, Cho married singer Park Ji-yoon in 2019 and had their first daughter in early 2021. After his term as CEO expired, Cho announced he would not seek reappointment and stepped down from the CEO position in March 2022.
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