“Lee Soo-man, please leave when you clap your hands”… Company-wide email to Kim Min-jong’s SM employee, ‘headwind’

Some voices of opposition came out from within SM over the resignation of former general producer Lee Soo-man, the founder and largest shareholder of SM Entertainment, who led K-pop, but the voices opposing it are getting louder. It is a common opinion that it is pointed out that there is no clear vision in the decision for the future of the company.

According to the industry on the 6th, Kim Min-jong, an actor and singer of SM and an outside director of SM C&C, a subsidiary of SM, sent a message to all employees through SM company-wide e-mail early the previous day. 3.0′ was criticized.

It was claimed that the executives and staff members and artists were shocked by the announcement of the two CEOs. He also confessed that it was a one-sided farewell, not a result of communication with the founder, but an arbitrary decision. The content was, “For SM, producer Lee Soo-man’s sense is needed, and please respect producer Lee Soo-man, who devoted his life to SM’s founding and development.”

The two co-CEOs have a deep relationship with founder Lee Soo-man. CEO Lee, who has demonstrated his ability in A&R, is the nephew of the founder Lee. CEO Tak, who joined SM through open recruitment in 2001, started as a manager and has been with CEO Lee for a long time, becoming a representative.

However, Kim Min-jong is facing a headwind. SM employees posted a number of posts in an anonymous community of office workers, including supporting the co-representative’s announcement and criticizing Kim Min-jong. In other words, Kim Min-jong’s e-mail only increased the displeasure of the employees.

SM employees said of Kim Min-jong, “He seems like a person who has no idea what the employees go through and endure every day.” There was also a voice cheering for Lee Seong-soo and Tak Young-jun, co-representatives, saying, “We are continuing to go in a good direction under any circumstances.”
In particular, requests such as “Mr. While fully respecting the achievements of founder Lee Soo-man, he decided that the founder’s resignation would be a win-win for him and his company. This founder is a person who has a lot to contribute to the K-pop industry even if he doesn’t handle producing within SM. The industry is expecting a role in external activities as a K-pop evangelist in the future.

Along with this, posts in which employees strongly criticized Kim Min-jong, such as “Don’t sell the company only at times like this”, “Who are the shocked employees and artists”, and “Don’t shake the employees”, also stood out.

After a recent drastic change in SM, with ‘SM 3.0’ as the starting point, employees are trying to get their minds together and move forward, and it seems that Kim Min-jong was not able to understand the feelings of a significant number of SM employees.

In fact, the public, industry and market reactions to SM 3.0 are favorable. 3.0 yen contains changes to promote the efficiency of the company’s organization, including the multi-production center and label system. As of 12:00 pm on the same day, the stock price is also recording 92,100 won, up 1.21% from the closing price of 91,000 won on the 3rd, when SM 3.0 was announced.

[서울=뉴시스]