'Nothing I can't do just because I'm a woman'

By Bahk Eun-ji

Since childhood, Ko Eun-ok, 35, loved to learn Taekwondo and other martial arts.

However, she was often chided by her family and relatives for pursuing martial arts. While growing up as the second daughter of three, she was often asked, “Why on earth does a girl do Taekwondo?”

“I was gifted in learning martial arts since I was young. I wanted to learn it because I thought I could protect and take care of my sisters and mother after my father passed away,” Ko said in an interview.

Her love of martial arts became the foundation for her to set up First Group, the nation’s first female bodyguard company, when she was only 25 years old.

“I’ve worked part-time as a bodyguard since I was 19, but there was no place for me to work regularly at many male-dominated bodyguard companies, whenever I tried to work full-time,” she said.

Ko, frustrated by repeated rejections, decided to set up her own company.

“Everyone said that I was crazy and reckless. Some people asked me how a woman dare run a business, especially a bodyguard business,” she said. “My mother, however, kept telling me there’s nothing I can’t do just because I am a woman.” Despite various obstacles, she launched the first female bodyguard company in the country.

The CEO also played a pivotal role in changing the general perception of bodyguards being a service only affordable among the upper class.

She used her academic background of marketing and business administration, and sold coupons on a home shopping channel.

“Sales reached nearly 200 million won during just an hour. But I think what’s significant was making people feel freer to use the service,” Ko said.

Since then, many ordinary people started to use the service, from a young woman who was being stalked to a girl bullied at her middle school.

“Female bodyguards are favored by female customers because we can communicate with those customers better and protect them more closely,” Ko said.

For instance, if a female customer is being stalked, a female bodyguard can live with them in their house for a period of time.

“These kinds of services cannot be offered by male bodyguards, right?”

Ko wants to train a younger generation of female bodyguards.

“There are not many people who can advise young women who want to get a job in this field. It’s time for me to share my experience with them, I think,” she said.