Namkoong Whon, a former Kakao CEO who resigned after a massive service outage last year, left the company by stepping down from an advisory position at the tech firm.

He announced the decision on his Facebook account on Wednesday, saying his future plans would involve charity work in education and AI.

From the fall semester, Namkoong has been a visiting professor at Sogang University where he is teaching a course aimed at prepping students before employment, derived from his own experiences as a rookie employee.

“I turn to a new chapter in life as I leave Kakao at the end of this month, a company I’ve been part of for eight years since I joined in August 2015,” he wrote.

“I am realizing my dream of becoming an educator, to deliver the knowledge I gained from my work to help students contemplate their professions,” he said. “I am also preparing to establish a scholarship foundation.”

The ex-CEO also revealed his aim of becoming an entrepreneur. The business sectors he’s eyeing are entertainment-related content and AI.

“I thought my passion would wane once I reach 50, and I thought Kakao would be my last company before retirement, but the coming of a new era made me want to challenge myself again.

“I have deep interest in those sectors and pursuing opportunities to enter the market as a budding entrepreneur.”

Namkoong had resigned from his top position at Kakao in October 2022 to take responsibility for the company’s servers crashing and halting all Kakao services over one weekend, the result of a fire that broke out at its data center in Pangyo, Gyeonggi. After he stepped down, Namkoong was appointed to head Kakao’s Future Initiative Center which explores future growth opportunities.

Namkoong was paid 9.68 billion won ($7.2 million) from the January-June period for his advisory role at Kakao’s Future Initiative Center and exercising his stock option, according to Kakao’s report filed on an electronic disclosure site.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]