When Lee Moon-won opened his clinic in Seoul in 2005, he made an unusual decision for a Korean medicine practitioner: He would treat hair loss. "At the time, there were hardly any medical institutions specializing in hair loss, not only in Korea but globally," said Lee in an interview with The Korea Herald at his office in Seoul on Aug. 27. "The purpose was to treat only hair loss and use purely natural ingredients for treating it." Twenty-one years later, that narrow focus has taken his clinic

Korean beauty recently earned a place on the US National Day Calendar with the inaugural National K-Beauty Week, held May 11 to 17, a fitting tribute to what is now one of the most powerful forces in the world's largest beauty market. Organized by global K-beauty distributor Landing International and beauty retailer Ulta Beauty, the week featured promotions across major US cities before culminating in a Nasdaq Closing Bell ceremony in Times Square led by Landing International founder and CEO Sar

Choi Eun-soo has spent more than two decades in an industry built on looking backward, but the Intellivix CEO is now betting that cameras can help prevent accidents before they happen. “AI should not be about showing off technology,” Choi said during a recent interview with The Korea Herald at Intellivix’s headquarters in Seoul. “It has to work in the field and prove itself through revenue.” For years, closed-circuit television has served as a record of what went wrong — footage to review after

Most K-beauty brands are heading west nowadays. This one found its way back to its roots. Founded in Germany by Dutch Korean entrepreneur Sander Joonyoung van Bladel and his German wife Veronika Strotmann, Yepoda opened its first Asian flagship last Saturday in Seongsu, Seoul. “The opening of our first store in Seoul's Seongsu district represents not only a new leap forward for the brand, but also a symbolic return to the Korean culture and market that form Yepoda's roots," Sander said in an int

For over a decade, ride-hailing has been led globally by industry heavyweights Uber, Lyft and Grab. With the pressure to finally turn profitable came steep commissions charged to drivers and passengers. Kay Woo, founder of blockchain-based ride-hailing startup Tada, says he believes that model is fundamentally broken, as drivers are being squeezed and users are paying more than they should. “Here, Uber and Lyft are charging about 35 percent commission, or sometimes like 45 percent commission, an

For most of its 34-year history, Welcron was better known for something far removed from the battlefield: industrial cleaners and functional bedding. The Korean microfiber specialist, however, is now positioning itself to be on the front lines as a world-class defense supplier. At the center of that shift is CEO Shin Jung-jae, a hands-on executive who rose through the ranks not as a defense specialist, but as a merchandiser, salesperson and operations leader. Her approach to leadership — meticul

For Kim Young-joon, the 36-year-old founder and chair of Pablo Air, volunteering for South Korea’s Army special forces was an easy decision. “I don’t really like doing what others usually do,” Kim said in an interview with The Korea Herald at the company’s office in Incheon last week. While Korean men typically complete their mandatory military service through conscription, Kim chose the more demanding route of volunteering as an officer in the special forces. “I like adventures, so I was lookin

Dessert trends shift fast in South Korea, and more or less, they’re sugar-coated. Dubai chewy cookies are the latest craze, but just a trend ago, it was bagels. Rewind a bit further, donuts had their moment, with Knotted at the forefront. Though the domestic buzz has subsided, the donut brand’s signature pastel box has reached the very countries that gave rise to the classic donut, introducing what its parent company, GFFG, calls the “K-donut.” According to GFFG CEO Lee Joon-beum, the K-donut is

By any measure, “Pororo the Little Penguin” is one of South Korea’s most recognizable characters. Since debuting in 2003, the blue penguin has anchored a domestic animation industry that previously struggled to prove commercial viability. Yet two decades on, even Pororo has found it difficult to achieve the kind of global cultural breakthrough recently accomplished by the Netflix animated hit “KPop Demon Hunters.” For Woo Jee-hee, CEO of animation studio OCON, the gap is not about effort or long

Korea’s leading premium distilled soju maker Hwayo took more than 10 years to turn a profit for the first time in 2015. Another decade later, Cho Hee-kyung -- Hwayo’s young leader and the second-oldest daughter of Hwayo founder and chair Cho Tae-kwon -- is poised to play the waiting game with resilience to take the next leap forward. “Our strategies are continuously changing as of late, and one of the reasons is that there are uncertainties,” said Cho Hee-kyung in an interview with The Korea Her