Website of V-Society

V-Society began in the early 2000s when its 21 founding members met every Thursday in search of new business insight while networking and sharing information.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won played an institutional role in creating and managing the weekly gathering that came together more than 150 times. It exerted great influence on tycoons and start-up entrepreneurs and the number of attending members grew gradually.

It sometimes led to acquisitions. For example, SK gobbled up Thrunet and Paxnet and the heads of the two acquired corporations were members of V-Society.

But the exclusive club’s gravitational power weakened substantially in 2003 when Chey was imprisoned for a number of charges including accounting fraud.

In the mid 2000s, it lost further momentum particularly when Chey left the fraternity.

However, V-Society did not go bankrupt or disappear even though there were losses through capital decline and the website, www.vsociety.co.kr is still active.

Currently, Korea Information Engineering Services President Yoo Yong-suk is in charge of V-Society although not much is being done.

In fact, V-Society was not only a forum for chaebol families or venture entrepreneurs at the dawn of the new millennium.
Other examples were the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) and the Seoul Young Entrepreneurs’ Organization (YEO).

The former was a monthly meeting of CEOs in their 30s and 40s such as Korea Investment & Securities Vice Chairman Kim Nam-goo and Sooseok Trading Vice Chairman Kang Moon-seok.

The latter was comprised of CEOs under the age of 40 and also convened once a month. One of its most outstanding members was Hyosung Vice President Cho Hyun-sang.

``Leaders of conglomerates are always thirsty for fresh ideas and one of the best ways to quench such thirst is through interchange with insightful entrepreneurs from promising venture start-ups,’’ said a source familiar with the issue.

``Meetings similar to V-Society have come into existence over the past decade and study groups connected to them continue to meet. These things will not be that different down the road.’’

One of the foremost CEO meetings of today is that of the Institute of Global Management (IGM).

Many high-profile businesspeople are members of the IGM such as SK Group Vice Chairman Kim Shin-bae, BMW Korea CEO Kim Hyo-joon, Woongjin Group Chairman Yoon Seok-kum and POSCO Chairman Chung Joon-yang.

Revenues of companies headed by IGM members amount to some 160 trillion won, almost a sixth of the national output of Korea Inc.