Mesh Korea’s CEO sorry about resume exaggeration

Rhyu Joung-bum admits his resume wasn’t quite accurate.

The CEO of Mesh Korea, a last-mile delivery start-up, has confirmed that he lied about his academic background and career history after the local press called him out on previous statements.

Rhyu, in a statement uploaded on Mesh Korea homepage Tuesday, said he is “very sorry to [Mesh Korea] employees and the industry for causing concern with issues regarding my academic background.”

He then explained he exaggerated his career due to an inferiority complex for not having graduated college at an early age.

Rhyu has been going around saying that he dropped out of Korea University and then entered Columbia University.

Not quite true.

It turns out that he dropped out of Chung-Ang University, then studied at Louisiana College and Emory University before transferring to Columbia University, according VentureSquare, a local press outlet that specializes in reporting start-ups.

Rhyu also lied about working for Deloitte at its New York headquarters, VentureSquare reported.

According to Rhyu, he was unable to enter his desired college due to a difficult household situation and distorted his academic background because he was ashamed of having spent such a long time studying while transferring to different universities in the United States.

Adding he has “nothing to hide now,” he promised to make it up to everyone through “business performance.”

Mesh Korea operates Vroong, a last-mile delivery service that has been growing with the online and mobile shopping boom. The company uses information technology to effectively manage and guide couriers that deliver food and other goods on motorbikes.

The start-up was selected as one of 13 to-be unicorns - start-ups that will soon be worth 1 trillion won ($846.8 million) in market value - by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups on July 11.

It has raised about $75 million of funding from a list of well-known names, including Hyundai Motor, Naver, SK Networks, Mirae Asset Global Investments and KDB Capital.

BY KIM JEE-HEE [kim.jeehee@joongang.co.kr]