Hong Min-taek, Kakao's (035720.KS) chief product officer who led last year's KakaoTalk overhaul that drew strong user backlash, has tendered his resignation.
According to industry sources on Thursday, Hong recently informed the company of his decision to step down and is currently going through the resignation process. Hong, a former CEO of Toss Bank, joined Kakao in February last year and spearheaded the redesign of KakaoTalk's friends tab, known as the "Big Bang Project."
Unlike the company's previous approach of vetting major updates in advance through its "experimental lab" feature, the September overhaul fully transformed the home screen into a feed-style structure centered on the friends list, sparking strong user pushback. Demands for a "KakaoTalk rollback" flooded online forums at the time.
In response, Kakao rolled out another update late last year that allowed users to choose the existing phone book-style list for the friends tab. Hong's departure after just one year and three months at the company is interpreted as having been influenced by the noise surrounding the redesign process and pressure from both inside and outside the company.
With Kakao placing greater emphasis on a profitability-focused management approach, industry attention is turning to who will be tapped as the next CPO to reorganize the product division.
