Kakao co-CEO steps down after fire takes services offline

Namkoong Whon, co-CEO of South Korean tech giant Kakao, has stepped down from his position following a major outage that made the firm’s services – including the country’s largest messaging platform KakaoTalk – unaccessible to users, Reuters reported.

Effective today, the departure would leave Hong Euntaek as the company’s sole CEO.

The development comes after a fire at a data center run by local ICT major SK C&C took Kakao’s services offline. Besides KakaoTalk, the accident also affected the firm’s ride-hailing, restaurant payments, news services, and game apps. 

According to the report, over 500 small businesses have reported to Korea’s Federation of Micro Enterprise – a support organization for small businesses in the country – about their losses in sales due to the outage.

Whon’s exit from the company comes less than a year after he was named CEO in January. Before that, he helmed Kakao’s organization for new growth initiatives.

See Also: SEA tech ecosystem report