Lee Mie-kyung, vice chairwoman of CJ, is a rare breed of Korean superrich who saw a business opportunity in culture and entertainment.
Born in Tennessee, U.S., and raised in Seoul, Lee is the Harvard-educated daughter of Lee Maeng-hee, Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee’s elder brother.
She first gained international recognition in 1995 after masterminding CJ Group’s $300 million investment in DreamWorks Studio founded by Hollywood powerhouses Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen.
Illustration Park Gee-young
Lee also has reportedly offered to help the Hollywood studio carve out a share of the Chinese market based on the Quanxi network she built while studying at Fudan University.
CJ currently holds the distribution rights of DreamWorks products in Korea and China, while the rest is held by FOX.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that there would be no DreamWorks today were it not for that partnership 20 years ago with CJ and Miki (Lee’s English name),” Katzenberg told Korean reporters in 2013.
Lee is largely cited as the individual responsible for the group’s leap from sugar manufacturer to culture-lifestyle enterprise, and the company now operates 17 cable TV channels and is a well-known film and music distributor.
Lee is also known for her jet-set lifestyle that consists of both attending and throwing celebrity parties.
She made headlines when she paid a visit to singer Rain’s barracks on Christmas Eve in 2011 when the star was serving mandatory military service.
“She really treats celebrities like friends. You don’t find that a lot among conglomerate owners,” an insider said.
However, experts say at times, Lee needs to harness her passion and think more clearly on how to go commercial.
Lee is particularly “over-enthusiastic” about projects involving friends and acquaintances, which have at times turned out to be business flops, they note.
A case in point is the flick “Soar to the Sky” starring Rain. The movie attracted a mere 1.2 million viewers, paling in comparison to its 9 billion won budget. In a similar case, the film “My Way,” directed by Kang Je-kyu, cost 33 billion won to make, but drew only 3 million viewers.
CJ E&M, the enterprise’s entertainment division, posted more than 1.7 trillion won in sales last year, but its operating profit stood at just 58.5 billion won.
“Lee must realize that she needs to address the faltering operating profit, and decide what cultural content makes money and what doesn’t,” a source said.
By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)
