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Coupang CEO Park Dae-jun (left) speaks to Brett Matthes, Coupang’s chief information security officer, as they appear before the National Assembly’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee on Dec. 2, 2025. (Yonhap)

Park Dae-jun, the CEO of the Korean online retail giant Coupang, resigned Wednesday after a data breach exposed the personal data of approximately 33.7 million users.

The company announced Park’s resignation on Wednesday.  

“I deeply apologize for disappointing the public over the recent data breach, and have decided to step down from all my positions to take full responsibility for both the incident and the company's response,” Park said in a statement. 

The e-commerce platform said that its US-based parent company, Coupang Inc., was actively working to address the incident, and had appointed Harold Rogers, the chief administrative officer and general counsel, as interim CEO to address customer concerns. 

“We deeply apologize for causing distress over the personal information leak,” the company stated. “We will focus our efforts on strengthening our security to prevent a recurrence of this unfortunate incident and strive to win back the trust of the public.”
 
The company is scheduled to attend a hearing by the National Assembly’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee on the data breach next week on Wednesday. 

The committee has asked a number of current and former Coupang executives to appear, including Coupang Inc. CEO Kim Bom-suk (known as Bom Kim in the US); Park Dae-jun, the recently resigned CEO of Coupang Corp.; former CEO  Kang Han-seung; Min Byeong-gi, the deputy head of policy cooperation for the company; and Cho Yong-woo, the deputy head of Coupang’s government relations department.
 
“Kim Bom-suk has remained silent while Park resigned immediately before the hearing. Coupang is busy hiding while the anxious public is having to come to terms with an unprecedented data leak involving 33.7 million users,” said Rep. Lee Hae-min of the Rebuilding Korea Party, who serves on the committee. 

“The least that Kim could do is show his face, explain the situation and take responsibility,” Lee said. 

By Lee Ju-bin, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]