Faculty Directory | Jihoon Rim

Jihoon Rim is an Adjunct Professor at NYU Stern School of Business, where he teaches technology and entrepreneurship to MBA and Executive MBA students. He also teaches in the TRIUM Global Executive MBA program, a joint degree among NYU Stern, the London School of Economics, and HEC Paris, and served as a consultant and testifying expert witness for the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in FTC v. Meta (2023-2025). 

Professor Rim brings two decades of leadership experience across venture capital and the technology industry. He founded KCube Ventures in 2012 and built it into one of South Korea’s most successful venture capital firms. Its inaugural $10 million fund returned more than $1 billion to investors. 

From 2015 to 2018, he served as CEO and Board Director of Kakao Corp., South Korea’s leading public technology company, best known for its mobile messaging platform KakaoTalk. Taking on the role during a challenging period, he led a remarkable turnaround, expanding Kakao into fintech, mobility, and digital content while leading major investments in artificial intelligence. Revenue and operating profit nearly doubled during his tenure. 

Earlier in his career, Professor Rim was a Principal at SoftBank Ventures Asia and an Associate Consultant at The Boston Consulting Group. 

He is also the founder and sole funder of the Jihoon Rim Foundation, through which he has made multimillion-dollar donations to support scholarships and mentorship for college students of Korean heritage.

Professor Rim holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). He has been recognized as Korea’s Best CEO (Insight Korea, 2017), one of Korea’s Top 10 Heroes (MBN, 2018), and a recipient of the AIS Leadership Excellence Award.