Fresh Face

In little more than two years, South Korean Kim Jung-woong, 44, has pushed aside giant competitors to create a $1.3 billion company from skin-care masks that China can’t stop buying.

- Grace Chung

When he was 15, tragedy lit a spark under Kim Jung-woong. His father was dead from liver cancer, leaving his widow and mother-in-law to raise Kim and his two siblings in South Korea. “Early on, I felt driven by the need to make money,” Kim says. At first he worked at a video game store, then he expanded to selling games on his own. He saved up $4,000, convinced his mother and an aunt to chip in as well and opened Game Paradise, his own retail shop in Seoul.