Kakao Games, whose ownership has shifted to LY Corporation, is launching full-scale expansion efforts, including a global push, under new leadership.
Kakao Games said it held an extraordinary general shareholders' meeting and a board meeting Monday at the Kakao AI Campus in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, where it appointed Kim Tae-hwan, vice president of LINE Games, and Lee Si-woo, chief business officer (CBO) of Kakao Games, as new co-CEOs.
New CEO Kim Tae-hwan has a track record of leading domestic and international mergers and acquisitions and strategic investments through his career at Nexon and LINE Games. He served as head of strategic planning, planning and coordination director, and vice president at Nexon Korea, CBDO at Nexon Japan, vice president at Nexon America, and CSO (vice president) at LINE Games, gaining broad experience in business development and strategy execution in global markets. At Kakao Games, he will oversee the company's mid- to long-term business strategy, global business expansion, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and strategic investments.
New CEO Lee Si-woo joined Kakao Games as head of the mobile business division in the early days of the company's founding in 2015 and has overseen the mobile and PC game businesses, serving as CBO (vice president) and in other roles. He has experience successfully publishing major intellectual property (IP) such as "Odin: Valhalla Rising" and numerous popular subculture-genre games. Going forward, he will oversee the entire game business, including game live service operations, new title publishing, and IP portfolio management, further strengthening the core competitiveness of the game business.
Kakao Games has completed the divestment of non-core businesses and the improvement of its financial structure, and is pursuing a growth strategy based on the financial soundness secured through strategic investment. The company plans to actively pursue equity investments and mergers and acquisitions in promising developers at home and abroad to expand its IP portfolio and development capabilities.
"Aggressive investment and innovation are essential to compete in the fiercely competitive global market," Kim said. "Based on the capital we have secured, we will do our best to ensure that Kakao Games can grow swiftly on the global stage."
"Based on our proven live service capabilities and new title lineup, we will strive to present Kakao Games' own differentiated IP," Lee said.
