[IT Cafe] "Appearing in the Lounge and Opening His Calendar"... Kakao's Busiest CPO These Days

Hong Min Taek, Former Toss Bank CEO and Current CPO
"That's another compliment"... Frequently Hosts 'Open Talk' and Shares Calendar Company-wide

Hong Min Taek Kakao CPO. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

Hong Min Taek, Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Kakao, is being recognized as the "most visible executive" within the organization. He frequently serves as a presenter at town hall meetings and even shares his calendar with the entire company.

Previously responsible for planning Samsung Pay’s overseas services at Samsung Electronics’ Mobile Communications division, Hong served as the first CEO of Toss Bank. He now oversees product strategies for KakaoTalk-based non-financial services, including advertising, commerce, artificial intelligence (AI), and user experience (UX).

According to the IT industry on July 22, Kakao recently implemented a calendar open policy requiring major executives, including those at the C-level, to share their work schedules with all employees. However, there has been widespread feedback that few executives actually disclose their real schedules transparently. Many simply delete all private events or upload schedules only in a perfunctory manner. In contrast, Hong CPO shares work-related activities such as meetings and conferences on the internal calendar in near real time.

On the anonymous internal community Blind, while there were critical posts such as, "When schedules were private, they were packed, but once made public, all the leaders’ calendars disappeared," there were also positive comments like, "Max (Hong CPO’s internal English name) sharing his calendar is praiseworthy," and "This deserves another compliment."

Hong CPO is also distinguished by his approach to communication. He frequently appears as a presenter at "Open Talk," a town hall meeting held at the lounge on the fourth floor of Kakao’s Pangyo headquarters. An internal Kakao source said, "Hong CPO is currently one of the executives who communicates most frequently," and added, "From an employee’s perspective, it is appreciated to be able to receive updates on what strategies he is considering at any time."