E-commerce companies battle it out for the best in the business

Industry

Published: 07 Aug. 2022, 16:00

E-commerce companies battle it out for the best in the business

Lee Jin-ho, chief technology officer at WeMakePrice [WEMAKEPRICE]

Competition to recruit high-ranking tech personnel is fierce in the e-commerce market, as companies actively scout people who have experience working abroad or at rival companies.

WeMakePrice announced Thursday it appointed Lee Jin-ho, a 49-year-old who formerly worked for Apple, as its chief technology officer (CTO).

While at Apple, Lee worked on the development of Siri and Spotlight, a search feature available on Apple computers. Before Apple, he worked at Become.com, a search engine company.

“I will help WeMakePrice become a major e-commerce company in Korea by utilizing my metacommerce experience, which I have developed expertise in,” Lee said in a statement Thursday.

WeMakePrice defines metacommerce as collecting various product-related data such as prices, reviews and size and providing them to users on one website.

Rather than reaching out abroad to scout talent, Yogiyo turned its eyes to a local company. It appointed Jeon Joon-hee, former vice president of engineering at Coupang, as its CTO in July.

Jeon Joon-hee, chief technology officer of Yogiyo [JOONGANG ILBO]

Jeon worked at Coupang since 2020 and led the development of the company’s Rocket Delivery service.

He formerly worked for Google from 2006 to 2019, leading the YouTube TV development team. He then worked at Uber, developing a system that allows users to find public transport transit routes on the Uber application.

“We are introducing new services and expanding our business and CTO Jeon will help to develop our services, considering he has expertise in various technologies used on platform applications,” said an official from Yogiyo.

Yogiyo ended its Yomart service — which delivered goods sold at discount stores within an hour — in September last year, but resumed it in May.

While the global economy is struggling due to inflation and companies that saw a boom during Covid-19 — e-commerce and deliveries — are worrying about business slowing down as the world recovers from the pandemic, those same companies are active in scouting tech professionals.

“If companies scout new high-ranking personnel such as CTOs even during times of economic uncertainties it means that they have a new business or field they want to branch out into,” said Lee Young-mi, executive vice president at CareerCare, a recruitment agency.

Thuan Pham, chief technology officer at Coupang [YONHAP]

Some companies are recruiting new tech leaders, but Coupang will lose its soon.

Thuan Pham, CTO of Coupang, is set to retire in September, after working at the company for two years. The announcement was made in July via an email sent out by HL Rogers, the company’s general counsel and chief administrative officer.

“He will retire after leaving Coupang,” said a spokesperson for Coupang. “Currently, there is nothing decided about a new CTO.”

BY LEE TAE-HEE [lee.taehee2@joongang.co.kr]