Hong Min-taek, CPO Who Led KakaoTalk Friends Tab Overhaul, Leaves Kakao

Joined in February last year... User backlash over Friends tab overhaul

Hong Min-taek, Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Kakao, who sparked controversy last year by pushing ahead with a major overhaul of the KakaoTalk Friends tab, is leaving the company.

According to the IT industry on May 27, CPO Hong submitted his resignation on this day and is currently proceeding with the process of leaving Kakao. Although Hong, who joined Kakao in February last year, was originally contracted to serve until February next year, he is departing without completing his remaining term.

Hong Min-taek, Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Kakao, is giving a presentation at the 'if Kakao' conference held last September at the Kakao AI Campus in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. Kakao

Hong, who previously served as CEO of Toss Bank, has led the overhaul of KakaoTalk since joining Kakao. Last September, Kakao carried out a large-scale update to KakaoTalk, changing the initial Friends tab to a social network service (SNS)-style feed without user consent, which drew criticism. As a result, Kakao announced just over a week after the update that it would restore the Friends tab to its original form, and by the end of last year, updated the app so users could select the original Friends list.

Criticism that CPO Hong pushed the KakaoTalk overhaul too aggressively also emerged within Kakao. On the closed workplace community Blind, several posts were made holding CPO Hong responsible for the controversy over the Friends tab. Posts by verified Kakao employees claimed that CPO Hong forced through the update despite opposition from developers and other staff members involved in the project.

In March, Kakao CEO Chung Shin-ah also addressed the controversy surrounding CPO Hong during the KakaoTalk overhaul process at the annual shareholders' meeting, stating, "We will continue to change the top-down decision-making culture."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.