President Lee Jae-myung nominated Choi Hwi-young, CEO of Naver, as Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism on the 11th.
On this day, President Lee completed the nomination of the first cabinet by appointing Choi as the Ministerial candidate. Including Ministerial candidate Choi, candidates included Kim Jeong-kwan for Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy (president of Doosan Enerbility), Bae Gyeong-hun for Minister of Science and ICT (head of LG AI Research Institute), Han Seong-suk for Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises and Startups (CEO of Naver), and Ha Jeong-woo, Chief of AI Future Planning (head of Naver Cloud AI Innovation Center), all of whom were appointed from corporations.
In particular, the number of corporate figures from Naver has reached three, following Chief Ha Jeong-woo and Ministerial candidate Han Seong-suk. While there are evaluations of 'practical appointments' for selecting many corporate experts with field experience rather than politicians, there are also criticisms that having three appointments from Naver within high-ranking public officials is excessive.
On this day, the presidential office emphasized Choi's experience in various fields, including media, IT companies, and travel and cultural content industries. Candidate Choi has a background as a broadcasting journalist and previously served as CEO of Naver. He later founded the travel platform Triple in 2016 and served as CEO of Interpark in 2022, and he is currently the CEO of the travel, leisure, and culture platform company, NOL Universe.
Additionally, the presidential office introduced Candidate Choi as 'the new CEO in the field of culture and tourism who will turn the president's vision of opening the 300 trillion won era of K-culture markets into reality with expertise and freshness from the private sector.'
President Lee set forth a promise in the cultural sector to usher in an era of '300 trillion won in the K-content industry and 50 trillion won in exports.' He has also stated that he will actively support content corporations and cultural artists to become a cultural powerhouse among the 'soft power big five.'
However, cultural content experts say that while Candidate Choi does have experience in IT, platform, and travel businesses, he is not a K-content specialist.
A professor in the cultural content department at a university said, 'While the trends of IT and platformization in the travel and cultural industries are clear, corporation member Choi Hwi-young is not a K-content specialist,' and added, 'While corporation members have strong expertise, I honestly don't know if Candidate Choi is suitable to lead the development of Korea's culture, sports, and tourism sectors, particularly in the K-content industry.'