Younghoon David Kim, chairman of Daesung Group, was elected as the new chairman of the Korea Foundation for International Culture Exchange (KOFICE) at the Foundation’s 26th Board of Directors’ meeting held at Grand Hyatt Hotel on July 9 2009.


During his three-year tenure, Mr. Kim will play a leading role in laying the foundation for international cooperation and promoting exchanges with culture industries in other countries across the world. KOFICE is a non-profit organization which engages in a variety of activities such as research on the global influence of Korean pop culture as well as the hosting of international forums and seminars, the Asia Song Festival and other international culture exchange events.

KOFICE is committed to promoting the growth of Korean pop culture as a sustainable national brand rather than simply a fad,” said Younghoon David Kim. “I look forward to exploring a new model for international cooperation to increase the status of Korean pop culture to an even higher level.

Since 2004, Mr. Kim has worked to promote private-sector investments in Korea’s culture industry as chairman of the Special Committee on Cultural Industry of The Federation of Korean Industries, and in 2008 also served as chairman of the Content Korea Commission, an advisory panel to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, playing a leading role in creating vision and a growth strategy for the local content industry as one of Korea’s next-generation growth engines

Daesung Group has business operations across an array of culture content areas such as film, book publishing, events, and games. It formed a strategic partnership with a New Zealand-based motion picture post production studio Park Road Post in 2005, and signed a memorandum of understanding on “Digital Content Technology and Business” with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) of Korea and the New Zealand Institute of Screen Innovation (NZISI) earlier this year, further expanding its partnership with the film industry in New Zealand. In 2007, the group successfully hosted the Global Content Forum, introducing “games for social change” to the Korean market.