Global E-commerce Platform Leader
Coupang, the largest e-commerce platform in South Korea, has hired executives of global companies to push into the global e-commerce market.
According to industry sources, eight out of 10 company executives are foreigners who are mostly American, Chinese and Indian – including Coupang CEO and founder Kim Beom-seok and chief financial officer (CFO) Richard Song.
Henry Low, executive vice president (EVP) of Global Operations, was a former CEO of ALOG, a China-based logistics and warehouse management company. Kartick Narayan, VP of Growth Marketing, served as chief marketing officer (CMO) Asia Pacific at Groupon. A considerable number of other executives also worked at global firms, including Amazon.
In addition, Vivek Subramanian, senior vice president (SVP) of Consumer Systems, was co-founder and vice president of CalmSea, a data analysis service developer acquired by Coupang. He has wide experience in B2B and B2C systems.
Navid Veiseh, SVP of Global e-Commerce who joined Coupang in February last year, developed and managed products at Amazon. In regard to Coupang’s decision to put an end to its social commerce service, he said, “We are happy to complete the changeover of e-commerce. We will provide more innovative services using technology in direct purchase, travel and rocket pay services.
Three out of its 10 executives have recently joined Coupang. Hui Xu, SVP of Search, Discovery and Personalization, worked at Pinterest, an image sharing and searching social networking website.
Ben Gerber, chief privacy officer (CP) who just joined Coupang, served as global privacy officer at Standard Chartered, while Sue Lynn, general counsel who is the only senior woman executive, was general counsel for the Korea Exchange Bank (KEB).