Advice

How I Became CEO at 27 After Everyone Older Than Me Turned into Fog

Woman becomes CEO amid South Korea's declining workforce struggles.

R

— 2 min read
Young woman in business suit stands alone in foggy, empty office holding folder
This digital illustration, styled like a Korean webtoon, shows a young office worker in a blue business suit standing in an eerie, fog-filled workplace. She holds a folder and wears a blank ID badge, her wide eyes reflecting confusion and mild dread. The empty chairs and thick mist suggest a surreal office environment abandoned mid-function — a visual metaphor for South Korea’s declining workforce and evaporating middle management.

In a nation running out of coworkers, one woman became a CEO by not disappearing into mist like everyone else

By Ji-ae Yoon, SeungTech Global CEO

I joined SeungTech as a junior analyst in 2019. Back then, the office had over 300 employees and one cheerful intern who high-fived me for no reason.

Now, it’s just me and a motion sensor that sometimes blinks at night.

This is the new normal in South Korea, where the fertility rate dropped to 0.72 in 2023 before the government updated its national motto to 기술적으로는 여전히 국가 (“Still technically a country”). By 2040, more than one-third of the population will be over 65. Companies are scrambling to fill roles once held by people who have evaporated and drifted toward the East Sea.

Here’s how I climbed the career ladder by standing perfectly still and letting it collapse beneath me:

Stay calm as managers dissolve into steam mid-meeting

One day, our marketing director said “Let’s circle back on that,” then gently faded through the ceiling tiles. I nodded, wrote “become steam?” in my notes, and got promoted the next day.

Learn every department. Then learn silence

By month six, I was HR, Legal, and three out of four Regional Sales Teams. At one point, I was promoted by an empty swivel chair. I bowed. It squeaked. I've become Will Smith in I Am Legend. That felt fair.

In a country with a shrinking population, all buildings are haunted

Sometimes I hear footsteps in the hallway. Sometimes it’s me. Sometimes it’s the ghost of our CFO whispering that I should follow up with Japan by EOD.

Redefine success as still having skin and a title

The birthrate is cratering and I haven’t heard a human sneeze in months. But I still have a job title and most of my epidermis. That’s called thriving.

Update the company motto to something more attainable, like ‘We are fewer, but somehow wetter’

I embroidered that on a bathrobe and wore it to our quarterly performance seance. I was the only one who attended. Lucy, our aging office printer, faxed me a congratulations banner.

If you cry, cry strategically

One tear during the national anthem (now a soft moan on melodica) gets you minor state funding. Two tears earns you a gift basket of baby socks and a commemorative ultrasound printout with no name on it.

You will be the final employee of East Asia’s loneliest semiconductor logistics firm

My last promotion came with a mirror to simulate having a colleague and a small glowing button labeled 다시 시작? (“Restart?”) that no one will explain.

South Korea is changing. The population is shrinking. I’m now the steward of a legacy that's mostly draft from cloud-like masses formerly known as my old colleagues.

And yet, I persist. ■

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