New Report Claims Bang Si Hyuk’s Keen Involvement With And Min Hee Jin’s Opposition To The Controversial Internal Reports

This article is part of our coverage of HYBE vs. ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin. You can read more and view the entire timeline here.

A few days ago, an exclusive Ilgan Sports report claimed that HYBE founder Bang Si Hyuk was directly involved in the controversial internal reports that were recently made public through the company’s audit. On October 31, Sports Seoul published another exclusive report stating that the HYBE executive “K,” who was the man behind the reports, was especially close to Bang.

Bang Si Hyuk | EY

The outlet quoted an insider as saying that the report is nearly 2,000 pages long and can potentially cause huge repercussions throughout the industry if it were to get leaked. According to Sports Seoul’s investigations, the document was created entirely according to Bang Si Hyuk’s intentions. He has known Director K since 2005, when they both were affiliated with JYP Entertainment. K reportedly worked as an editor-in-chief for a media outlet and also worked as a consultant for entertainment companies. When BIGHIT MUSIC turned into HYBE, Bang gave “K” the position of editor-in-chief of Weverse Magazine.

According to insider sources, Bang Si Hyuk has always paid careful attention to influential reporters and critics to ensure his company’s releases get good press. Since “K” was also very influential in the industry, the HYBE founder made him a C-level executive of HYBE.

“K” was reportedly paid a hefty salary for his position as the editor-in-chief of Weverse Magazine. One of the most important aspects of his job was creating industry reports that were meant to give HYBE executives a comprehensive overview of K-Pop trends. These reports, as claimed by HYBE insiders, had the same format “K” used while publishing industry reports at his previous job as a media editor. It is said that his reports tended to mix stories from sources and opinions from online communities.

Sports Seoul also claimed that ADOR‘s former CEO, Min Hee Jin, had constantly raised issues with the reports created by “K,” confirming her stance during her recent interview. In an email sent from Min to HYBE on April 16, she objected to the “biased and partial content” of the reports, demanding objectivity in terms of “numbers and indicators” instead.

I raised an objection to CEO Park Ji-won, but I was told, ‘Don’t read it,’ and received feedback from CHRO Kim Joo-young saying, ‘Consider it as one person’s opinion.’ I don’t understand why a subjective, unverified individual’s content, lacking objectivity, should be distributed to all executives as if it holds any representativeness. The bias is so pronounced that it even raises suspicions of being distributed for some sort of ulterior motive or propaganda.

— Min Hee Jin

Meanwhile, HYBE’s CEO, Lee Jae Sang, has since apologized on behalf of the company for the document. Lee acknowledged that “the documents lacked awareness of the potential issues they would bring” and claimed to have “halted the creation of future documents” as a response to the criticism received.

HYBE vs. ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin