Head of Farfetch owner Coupang resigns following data breach

The chief executive officer of South Korean tech giant Coupang has announced his resignation on the back of a data breach that was said to have compromised 33.7 million customers and resulted in the launch of class-action lawsuits.

Park Dae-jun, who had joined the company in 2012 before taking up the helm in May 2025, said in a statement to the press: “I am deeply sorry for disappointing the public with the recent personal information incident. I feel a deep sense of responsibility for the outbreak and the subsequent recovery process, and I have decided to step down from all positions.”

Coupang confirmed the news in a press release, which said the US parent company had appointed Harold Rogers, its chief administrative officer and general counsel, as interim CEO of the firm’s Korean operations. Rogers intends to “focus on alleviating customer anxiety, settling the data breach issue both internally and externally, and stabilising the organisation”.

Coupang, which acquired British luxury platform Farfetch last year, has been embroiled in controversy since the data breach was detected and confirmed in early November, despite reports suggesting it could have begun as early as June.

The e-commerce firm said the account information of nearly 34 million customers, including email addresses, phone numbers and shipping addresses, were potentially compromised in the breach. No credit card information or login credentials were leaked.

As a result of the leadership shift, Coupang’s US parent company will take on a more active role in managing the recovery efforts addressing the incident. Such efforts will go, in part, towards addressing legal issues that have arisen in response to the breach, including plans to bring a class-action lawsuit by Korean customers to the US federal court.