This article was taken from the August 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
When Miky Lee was a little girl, she spent her time after school at the TV studios of the Tongyang Broadcasting Company in Seoul, with her grandfather, Lee Byung-chull. "He ran the company, so I was allowed to watch how shows were made on the ground," says Lee.
Now 55, she runs CJ Entertainment and Media (CJ E&M), a spinoff from her grandfather's 60-year-old conglomerate CheilJedang (CJ). The company operates 18 cable channels, including pop-music channel Mnet; produces South Korean and international films; distributes digital music; stages concerts, musicals and music festivals; and runs the country's biggest online video-game portal,
Netmarble. Lee's dream is "to see people around the world enjoying Korean culture".
Her strategy has been to acquire competitors such as On Media and become a hub for creation and production of entertainment content, by bringing film, music, television, live theatre and digital under one roof. "This helps us package Korean culture as a whole and take it beyond Asia," she says. Her next project, the Ice Age film Snowpiercer, will be released in more than 100 countries and has a cast including Tilda Swinton, Chris Evans and Ed Harris. Lee says, "I think we can have a cross-cultural 'Korea' brand that even eclipses Korea's actual economic influence."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
