Kakao Under Chung Shinah to Lead for 2 More Years... Credited With Earnings Improvement and Governance Overhaul (Comprehensive)

Board Approves Reappointment Agenda...To Be Finalized at Shareholders' Meeting on the 26th of Next Month
Strengthening Fundamentals by Streamlining Affiliates...Driving Earnings Growth as Well
Expected to Focus on Strengthening AI Capabilities Going Forward

Kakao CEO Chung Shinah, whose term ends in March this year, is expected to lead Kakao for an additional two years. As Chung has been credited with delivering record-high results since taking office while simultaneously overhauling governance, the agenda item at the shareholders' meeting is also expected to pass smoothly.

Kakao announced in a disclosure on the 11th that its board of directors had approved an agenda item to reappoint CEO Chung Shinah for a new two-year term.

This agenda item is expected to be finalized at the annual general shareholders' meeting to be held on March 26. Chung, who took office in March last year, is serving a term that runs until the end of next month.

The reappointment proposal is expected to pass easily at the shareholders' meeting, as Kakao's performance last year is projected to have reached an all-time high. Securities firms forecast Kakao's revenue for last year at around 8.0847 trillion won and its operating profit at around 683.0 billion won.

Over the past two years, Chung has been in charge of Kakao's overall management and is regarded as having driven both solid fundamentals and growth. Shortly after taking office, Chung began restructuring affiliates unrelated to the core business, reducing the number of affiliates from 132 to 94 as of the end of last year, a decrease of about 30%.

Within the industry, there is a broad recognition that Chung has demonstrated a strong commitment to enhancing shareholder value and has devoted herself to responsible management. In fact, from 2024 to the present, she has purchased Kakao treasury shares on the open market on four occasions, totaling about 400 million won. She is also honoring her pledge not to sell those shares during her tenure.

In addition, over the past two years, Chung has served as chair of the CA Council, an independent group-level body within the Kakao Group, where she has been setting Kakao's strategic direction and coordinating interests among affiliates.

In her second term, Chung is expected to focus on strengthening artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. In her New Year's address last month, she said, "Without resting on the success formula of the past, we will use AI as a 'creative multiplier' that amplifies each person's capabilities and ideas, and continue bold challenges so that 1+1 becomes more than 2."

In line with this, the Kakao Group has presented "people-centered AI" and a "global fandom OS" as the two core pillars that will drive growth in 2026. People-centered AI is a strategy to maximize Kakao's unique strength of understanding the context of the daily lives and relationships of its 50 million users. In her New Year's address, Chung projected that "AI will evolve beyond a tool that simply executes commands into agentic AI that first understands user intentions and situations and then connects the next action."

At the same board meeting, Kakao also decided on a year-end cash dividend of 75 won per common share. The total dividend payout amounts to 33,012,370,000 won.

Meanwhile, Kakao plans to announce its full-year and fourth-quarter results for last year on the 12th.