{"id":253896,"date":"2026-03-26T12:07:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T12:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=253896"},"modified":"2026-03-26T12:08:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T12:08:19","slug":"kakao-entertainment-appoints-junghee-ko-as-co-ceo-alongside-joseph-chang-in-leadership-restructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/kakao-entertainment-appoints-junghee-ko-as-co-ceo-alongside-joseph-chang-in-leadership-restructure\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korea’s Kakao Entertainment appoints JungHee Ko as Co-CEO alongside Joseph Chang in leadership restructure"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Korea-headquartered Kakao Entertainment has appointed JungHee Ko as co-CEO, effective Wednesday (March 25), joining Joseph Chang, who has held the co-CEO title since 2024.<\/p>\n

Ko takes on an additional role as Chief Platform Officer, overseeing a newly created unit responsible for Kakao Entertainment’s platform services.<\/p>\n

The unit\u2019s portfolio includes music streaming service Melon<\/b>, web novels and webtoons unit KakaoPage<\/b> and K-culture fandom division Berriz<\/b>, which launched<\/a> in March last year.<\/p>\n

Chang, meanwhile, will lead the newly established Global Growth Center<\/b>, which was created to expand the company\u2019s reach globally.<\/p>\n

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Ko is a Kakao group veteran. At Kakao Bank<\/b>, she rose from Head of Channels and Services in 2016 to Head of AI Group in 2025. Prior to that, she spent time at the Strategy Support Division of the wider Kakao group. In 2002, she was with Daum Communications<\/b>, which merged with Kakao Corp.<\/b> in 2014. Prior to that, she worked at Korea Information & Communications Co., Ltd. Star Bridge Communication <\/b>from 1999.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe will blend Kakao Entertainment\u2019s IP competitiveness with our entertainment-specialized platform capabilities to create stronger synergy, thereby expanding the global fandom ecosystem of K-culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

JungHee Ko & Joseph Chang, Kakao Entertainment<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, Chang’s track record includes a stint as Global Strategy Officer and CEO of Kakao Entertainment. He also spent time at Sony Music Entertainment <\/b>as Vice President in 2015 to CEO of SME Korea in 2018 and CEO of SME Korea\/Asia in 2019.<\/p>\n

He previously served as Chief Business Officer of SM Entertainment<\/b>.\u00a0Kakao is a major shareholder in SM Entertainment, the K-pop agency behind\u00a0 <\/span>acts such as\u00a0Super Junior<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0aespa<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Kakao won a bidding war<\/a> against entertainment giant HYBE<\/b>\u00a0for control of the company in 2023.<\/p>\n

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Kakao Entertainment said under the new leadership structure, the company will build stronger synergy between IP and platforms while broadening its global fandom.<\/p>\n

The company said: \u201cAs global demand for K-content continues to grow and the entertainment industry increasingly shifts toward integrated IP and platform ecosystems, the new structure positions Kakao Entertainment to more strategically expand its reach and audience engagement worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his new role, Chang plans to bolster the competitiveness of the company\u2019s IP business by connecting the planning, production, and distribution of IP across music, story, and media, according to the press release.<\/p>\n

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Chang will also seek to build a portfolio of \u201cglobally influential IPs\u201d through expansion and diversification, as well as explore new business opportunities as the company aims to deepen its footprint in the US market via partnerships, distribution, and localized strategies, Kakao Entertainment said.<\/p>\n

In a joint statement,<\/i> Ko and Chang said: \u201cWe will blend Kakao Entertainment\u2019s IP competitiveness with our entertainment-specialized platform capabilities to create stronger synergy, thereby expanding the global fandom ecosystem of K-culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of its global expansion strategy, Kakao Entertainment in January partnered<\/a> with China and Japan\u2019s largest audio streaming providers to launch a new \u2018K-pop Artist Chart.\u2019 The company signed separate memoranda of understanding with China\u2019s Tencent Music Entertainment <\/b>and Japan\u2019s Line<\/b> Music<\/b> to integrate K-pop streaming data into a new chart that will be handled by Melon, Kakao\u2019s music streaming service in the South Korean market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ko takes on an additional role as Chief Platform Officer, overseeing a newly created unit responsible for Kakao Entertainment’s platform services<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":253897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[132255,130045],"class_list":["post-253896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-kakao-entertainment","tag-sm-entertainment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253896"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253946,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253896\/revisions\/253946"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}