I Became the Faceless CEO of an Entertainment Company

"Waaaaaah!!!! It's finally over!!!!!"

"Why are you yelling..! Everyone's staring..!!"

"Because I feel free. Don't you?"

"W-well, yeah, but..."

Unlike the still-timid Park Seongmin, I had to give this liberating feeling the full expression it deserved.

Midterm exams for the first semester were finally over.

"You're the worst."

"Yeah, right back at you."

"Ha! So immature..!"

"Anyway, Seongmin, I'm out~"

"Where are you going??"

"Hey! I wasn't finished talking!!"

I didn't have time to hang around with Park Seongmin or Kim Areum right now.

The exams were done. That meant it was time to dig into the mountain of work that had been piling up and piling up.

After acquiring Lime Entertainment, I'd done two things.

The first was appointing a professional manager.

Bringing in a capable executive hadn't been difficult. Attorney Choi Myeonghun had introduced someone with an outstanding track record and an equally excellent reputation.

The second was an internal audit.

I hadn't just cleaned up the finances — I'd ripped out every rotten custom and toxic practice that had taken root inside Lime Entertainment. People who deserved punishment got punished. People who deserved rewards got rewarded.

Thanks to that, it's a completely different company. So now it's time to start looking after the real profits, isn't it?

The taxi dropped me off in Nonhyeon-dong, Gangnam-gu.

Lime Entertainment had planted itself in this neighborhood that was expensive for no good reason. For a mid-sized agency, they had a couple of decent idol groups that kept them just barely out of the red — but even shaving down the monthly rent alone would be a massive help to the books.

"Welcome, Representative."

"Just call me casually, please. And I don't even hold the title of representative."

"Which is exactly why you should create a title for yourself while you have the chance. Coffee alright?"

The woman carefully pouring hand-drip coffee was the professional manager Attorney Choi Myeonghun had recommended — President Won Chaeyoung.

Honestly, she was far too good for a company this small.

Princeton graduate. Harvard MBA. In her early thirties she'd co-founded a small IT firm in Silicon Valley with college friends, delivered outstanding results as its professional CEO, then been scouted as an executive by a globally renowned corporation.

But her parents' health had recently taken a turn for the worse back in Korea, so she'd come home. While she was looking for work here, Attorney Choi Myeonghun had introduced her to me.

Of course I'd wanted to lock down a résumé that dazzling — but the salary she'd been earning was the problem. My personal money I could just hand over, but a salary had to come out of company funds.

In the end, I managed to secure President Won Chaeyoung for five years with an annual salary of two hundred million won plus stock options amounting to five percent of the company.

"Smells good, doesn't it?"

"It does. But do you know something?"

"What?"

"You really lucked out."

"I wonder. Can five percent of a company that hasn't even gone public really be called lucking out? And I took a four-hundred-fifty-percent cut from my previous salary — if anyone lucked out, Representative, it was you."

"You came back for your parents anyway. Anywhere else, you'd be so busy you wouldn't even have time to spend with them."

"That was the biggest reason, yes."

Right. It wasn't the two ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hundred million salary or the five-percent stock options that made her take my offer.

Time with her parents — that was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what mattered most to President Won Chaeyoung.

But this was never going to be a losing deal for her.

I was going to make sure of that.

"Aren't you curious what that five-percent stock option will be worth five years from now?"

"I wonder."

"And if the result is satisfying, will you stay on?"

"Won't you be running the company yourself by then?"

"No. My dream is to live an ordinary life. Being a company CEO isn't exactly ordinary."

"Buying a company for thirty billion won at twenty isn't exactly ordinary either."

"Ahem..! That was... circumstances."

"So what brings you here? You didn't come just to brag about acing your exams, I assume."

"How did you know I did well?"

"Your face looks happy."

"That obvious?"

"Yes."

We kept up the ordinary conversation over coffee, and once the cup was about half empty, I got to the point.

"I want to relocate the company headquarters."

"How about Seongsu-dong?"

"You've already looked into it?"

"The rent here is expensive and the space is tight. I was going to bring it up anyway."

Seongsu-dong — the neighborhood where a flood of entertainment agencies would soon be relocating.

Cheaper rent than Gangnam, and still close to it.

I agreed that Seongsu-dong was the right move right now.

But Seongsu-dong wasn't the present. It was the future.

Cheongdam-dong's luxury street had once been called K-Star Road. Ten years from now, in 2028, Seongsu-dong wouldn't just be a K-Star Road — it would be called K-Culture Town.

The ugly elevated tracks of Subway Line 2 would go underground, and a new circular rail line would make travel to other districts effortless. Naturally, the rundown buildings would transform into new ones, and land prices would climb high enough to threaten Gangnam across the river.

And even then, the entertainment companies wouldn't leave. Rising agency revenues would be a big part of it — but by that point the real estate bubble would have burst, and property prices across Seoul would have settled into something more stable.

Even so, investing now was never going to be a loss. Even after the bubble deflated, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'd still clear at least double what I put in.

And factor in the steadily climbing rental income, and it's a well that never runs dry.

"Pardon?"

"Nothing. I have a habit of talking to myself sometimes. Hard to break."

"Habits are hard to fix. But why here? The intersection has decent foot traffic, but Ttukseom Station is just a short walk away. Wouldn't somewhere closer to the station be better?"

"This is near the station."

"Well, technically yes — it's about a hundred and fifty meters. But it's not what Koreans call a true station-area prime location."

"It is a true station-area prime location."

"......"

She looked at me like she had no idea what I was talking about.

But it was. A subway entrance was going to open right where President Won Chaeyoung was standing.

And Ttukseom Station would disappear. During the Line 2 underground conversion, Ttukseom Station would be relocated to this very intersection and become a transfer hub for the Shinbundang Line and the new circular line. The name would change from Ttukseom to Sinseongsu Station, and a massive development boom would sweep the entire area.

The official announcement would come in 2024, with completion in 2028 — but the Line 2 underground work and the Ttukseom Station relocation would be finished by 2026.

"Would this building work for you?"

"Yes, if we can lease about three floors, that should be plenty. But is it even available?"

"Everyone's moving out next month."

"What??"

"I bought it. Treat it like it's yours and use it however you like."

"......"

A few days earlier, I'd purchased a building with a lot area of roughly fifteen thousand square feet and a total floor area of about a hundred thousand — three basement levels and ten above-ground floors, not counting the rooftop.

It had cost more than expected. I hadn't thought it would clear fifty billion won. But the owner hadn't wanted to sell, so I'd had no choice but to put a high number on the table.

"W-wait a second! Just because you bought this building doesn't mean we can use all of it — that's completely unrealistic. Never mind the rent, we couldn't even fill a space this big in the first place."

"Don't worry. You'll have more businesses to manage than just this one. Of course, I'll set a separate salary for that part."

"......"

I wasn't going to run Lime Entertainment myself — but the Lime Entertainment I was drawing in my head was bigger and grander than what stood here now.

I wasn't going to make it a company that only managed artists. I was going to expand into OTT production with in-house capability.

If only to prepare for the pandemic that would start at the end of 2019, I needed to acquire related companies and lock in a range of contracts in the time I had left.

And the person who would take the helm of all of it wouldn't be me — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it would be President Won Chaeyoung.

"You're going to be busy from now on."

"Excuse me?"

"I'll visit your parents often in your place."

"......"

President Won Chaeyoung, who valued her time with her parents so highly, might refuse to take it on. But if it was tightly connected to Lime Entertainment?

She was the kind of person who would roll up her sleeves and dive in without me having to push her.

Then shall I start by loading her with ammunition so she can work as hard as she wants?

Miu Company had been an absolute jackpot. Or rather — it had risen exactly as much as I remembered.

But Aitrogen and Rosno Chemical had been more sluggish than expected. Their gains were actually lower than the last time I'd checked.

Still, the value of the stocks I'd parked two hundred billion won into each was more than enough to fund what I was about to do.

I'd invested sixty billion, and after taxes, walked away with three hundred fifty billion.

This was the privilege of a regressor.

I'd made a fortune — but selling everything left me feeling oddly empty. I still had Tesola to sell in 2021 and Ecrop in 2023, but I still felt like I needed to buy a little more of something.

"What's this? The timing's perfect."

The moment I checked the information I'd transferred to my phone, I decided to buy. There was a stock that would climb a full 491% to its peak in just about two months.

Still, better safe than sorry — I'd invest only fifty billion.

Then a problem came up.

The market cap of the company I'd planned to invest in was forty-two billion.

Why? Why on earth...

"How is a company not even worth fifty billion?"

Ah. Right. The company I'd bought was a thirty-billion-won company. Where there are big companies, there are small ones too.

I set the disappointment aside and bought whatever I could. The floating shares on the market came to about twenty billion won's worth. Of that, I managed to snag only about eight billion.

"Still, that should clear me forty billion."

I considered picking up other stocks, but nothing else was delivering returns over 300%, and I didn't know how much cash I'd need going forward — so I left the rest alone.

And from here on, I had something else to do.

"Hey, don't we see each other a little too often?"

"So you hate it?"

"Hate it~? Thank you for always using my services, Customer~"

From Geum Gangsan — whom I was seeing more often than my closest friends — I took a thick envelope of documents.

"So why'd you have me dig this up?"

"Curious?"

"Yeah."

"Then pay a consultation fee. I'll kindly tell you."

"I'll be on my way, Customer. Call me again anytime~~"

Geum Gangsan left, and alone in the café I opened the envelope and went through the papers one by one.

What I'd asked Geum Gangsan for was the trainee roster of every agency in Korea.

Using this list, I was going to pull as many buried gems as possible over to Lime Entertainment.

"If I'm doing this, I might as well do it right. Ah — come to think of it, those audition programs are about to start... The kids who go on those will be tough to snag, won't they?"