Kim Jaewon, CEO of Ellis Group, was named a candidate for the fifth chair of the Korea Startup Forum.
The Korea Startup Forum said on the 22nd that it held the first board meeting of 2026 on the 21st and finalized CEO Kim Jaewon as the candidate for the fifth chair. The final appointment will be decided at the regular general meeting on Feb. 26. The term of current Chair Han Sang-woo ends in February.
About 20 board members, including Chair Han Sang-woo and Executive Director Choi Ji-young, attended the meeting that day. Key agenda items, including the 2025 business assessment and the 2026 business plan, were discussed.
The Korea Startup Forum announced plans this year to leap forward as a "platform organization" that defines problems and connects solutions across policy, global, industry, and culture to respond to the rapidly changing startup ecosystem. To that end, it established various business plans, including ▲ building a standing cooperation structure with the government, the National Assembly, and related ministries ▲ spreading a natural startup culture ▲ building a global founder network ▲ creating an execution-focused environment for AX (AI transformation) and entry into new industries.
Chair Han Sang-woo said, "The Korea Startup Forum will evolve into an execution organization that connects policy, global, AI, and community into a single flow," adding, "As a solution platform that startups turn to first, we will go beyond being a mere facilitator of innovation to define problems directly and solve them."
Meanwhile, Ellis Group is an AI education solutions company founded in 2015 by CEO Kim Jaewon and Ph.D. students researching AI at KAIST. It is currently developing businesses in AI education and digital transformation.