December 11, 2025
SEOUL – South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang said Wednesday that CEO Park Dae-jun has resigned in the wake of a major data breach that compromised the personal information of millions of users.
In a company statement, Coupang said Park “deeply regrets the disappointment caused by the recent incident” and takes full responsibility for both the breach and the company’s handling of it.
“Recognizing my responsibility for both the breach and the company’s response, I have made the decision to resign from all positions,” Park said.
His resignation comes less than two weeks after Coupang confirmed on Nov. 29 that the personal data of customers had been leaked. The disclosure sparked public outrage and triggered increased regulatory scrutiny.
Coupang Inc., the US-based parent company, appointed its Chief Administrative Officer and general counsel Harold Rogers as interim CEO. Rogers will lead the company’s crisis response, oversee internal stabilization efforts and focus on restoring customer trust.
“We will take every possible step to strengthen our information security and prevent such an event from happening again,” Coupang said.
The fallout from the breach is expected to have lasting implications for Coupang and may shape broader policy discussions around data privacy and corporate accountability in South Korea.
Speaking at a national policy meeting Wednesday, Prime Minister Kim Min-seok described the situation as “beyond serious,” calling it a fundamental issue of corporate ethics. “Protecting user data is a basic duty of any platform operator,” he said.
Authorities have launched a formal criminal investigation. Starting Tuesday, investigators from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency raided Coupang’s Seoul headquarters, seizing digital records and internal documents related to the breach.