Hybe CEO Park Ji-won, ‘Squid Game’ director Hwang Dong-hyuk on Variety500 list

Park Ji-won, CEO of South Korean entertainment company Hybe, and Hwang Dong-hyuk, writer-director of the hit Netflix series “Squid Game,” have been included on the U.S. entertainment magazine Variety’s annual list of the 500 most influential business leaders shaping the global media industry.

According to the Variety500 released Thursday (U.S. time), the two people put their names on the list, along with Scooter Braun, the CEO of Hybe America, and Kim Minyoung, Netflix’s vice president of content for the Asia Pacific region, excluding India.

Hybe is the company behind global K-pop sensation BTS and other boy groups, such as Seventeen, Tomorrow X Together and Enhypen.

The photos above show Park Ji-won (L), CEO of South Korean entertainment company Hybe, and Hwang Dong-hyuk, writer-director of Netflix’s global megahit “Squid Game.” The photo of Park was provided by Hybe. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

Park has also been rated positively in the music industry for effectively utilizing a company strategy of having multiple Hybe labels — Big Hit Music, Belift Lab and Pledis Entertainment — independently produce music and expanding its music business to various fields, such as gaming, web-based cartoons and novels, using the intellectual property rights of its artists.

“There’s been lots of movement for Braun’s A-list management clients in 2022: Justin Bieber opened his Justice World Tour with sold-out shows in July and a genre leap to rock found Demi Lovato songs fetch 3 million YouTube views within days of release,” the magazine said of Braun.

About Hwang, it said he was not well known to most American audiences, but that was all changed with his Netflix series “Squid Game,” which it described as “a darkly comedic, dystopian tale of 456 debt-addled people competing in deadly children’s games for the chance to win $35 million.”

It praised Kim for playing a role in the show’s global success as one of the streamer’s first content executives based in Asia, building its slate of Korean original series and helping lead the creation of its Seoul office.