Shinsegae hires Alibaba Korea head to lead online mall Gmarket

Shinsegae Group, South Korea’s retail giant, on Wednesday launched sweeping top-level management overhauls for Gmarket Inc. and SSG.COM. to tighten up its underperforming e-commerce arms.

In a drastic management reshuffle, Shinsegae has recruited senior managers from rivals such as Coupang and Naver Commerce, as well as Chinese retailer Alibaba.

It appointed Chung Hyung-kwon, who has led Alibaba’s Korean operations since 2018, as chief executive of Gmarket.

Chung, also known by his English name Danny Chung, worked at Ant Group, Alibaba’s financial arm and Korean fintech platform Kakao Pay, as well as Coupang Inc., South Korea's No. 1 online shopping mall.

With a doctoral degree in economics from Brown University, he had a 10-year stint at Credit Suisse as an investment banker and then as its Asia insurance head.

The incoming CEO is an fellow alumnus of Shinsegae Group Chairman Chung Yong-jin, who earned a bachelor’s degree in economics, also from Brown. 

“As a financial expert with experience in the electronics, e-commerce and fintech industries, he is the right person to lead Gmarket,” said a Shinsegae official. “We expect he will build a foundation for profit-oriented balanced growth."

Gmarket also named Kim Jeong Woo, a former Naver executive, as chief product officer. At Naver, Kim has overseen product search and advertisement planning since 2019.

Oh Cham, an ex-software engineer at Coupang, was tapped as Gmarket’s new technology head. At Coupang, he headed its advertising and marketing unit.

With the new hires, Gmarket established a technology development division spun off from its product management division, a move aimed at bolstering its technology competitiveness.

SSG.COM   

For SSG.COM, Choi Hoon-hak, its sales division head, is taking over as CEO from Lee In-young. Shinsegae said that his appointment to the top management post was aimed at strengthening its grocery business and logistics services. Choi will continue to head the sales division as well.

SSG.COM is slimming down its organization with two divisions of sales and digital technology absorbing marketing and back-office operations, respectively.

The management reshuffle took place as it is looking for a new investor to take over shares from private equity firms Affinity Equity Partners and BRV Capital Management.

The top management overhauls for the online platforms came less than a year after Shinsegae replaced CEOs of its two business pillars, E-Mart Inc. and Shinsegae Department Store, under Shinsegae Corp.

Last month, E-Mart launched a company-wide early retirement program for the first time in its 31-year history, after posting its first annual loss in 2023.

In the online retail market, Coupang overtook SSG.COM in terms of sales last year. The rise of Chinese rivals such as AliExpress and Temu are also pushing SSG.COM and Gmarket into a corner.

Naver Corp, the country’s largest online platform, is rapidly penetrating into the e-commerce market with the launch of Naver Commerce.

Write to Jae-Kwang Ahn and Hyun-Jin Rh at ahnjk@hankyung.com

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.