President Lee Jae-myung on Monday nominated Han Sung-sook, former CEO of Naver, as minister of SMEs and Startups.
Han, 58, is a first-generation IT expert who played a key role in the growth of Naver, Korea’s largest portal site.
After graduating from Sookmyung Women’s University, she began her career as a tech reporter at a local media outlet. She later joined Empas, one of Korea’s early portal sites, where she served as head of the search business.
Han joined NHN, now rebranded as Naver, in 2007 and held key positions including search quality director and general service director. In 2017, she became the company’s first female CEO.
She stepped down from the role in 2022 to lead Naver’s European business development until recently. Since March, she has been serving as an adviser at Naver and also chairs the Korea Internet Enterprise Association.
yeeun@heraldcorp.com
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