Invisibly Audacious
Forbes Asia|October 2016

Like the burgeoning Korean company she runs, E-Land’s Sky Park is only selectively splashy.

Seline Jung
Invisibly Audacious

E-Land may be the most active consumer multinational you’ve never heard of, with a foothold in sectors from fashion to food to hospitality. It is arguably one of South Korea’s least flashy conglomerates, despite operating in 20 countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Japan and Singapore. It spends next to nothing on marketing and advertising, rarely releases information to the public and remains unlisted.

At the helm is Sky Park, who is as outwardly flamboyant as her company is not. The 59-year-old looks the part of a grand fashionista, favoring bedazzled berets, wide lapel coats and long patent-leather boots. But despite her appearance, Park—whose Korean name is Park Sung- Kyung—maintains a hush-hush profile that mirrors the conglomerate’s. She has never before spoken with Western media and rarely with the local press. When she does appear in print, she requests her photo be as small as possible. “Because I live here, the thing I dislike the most is if people know my face,” she says. She is also guarded about her family: She is married with two grown children, but the public knows little about them.

Park has built E-Land into a company that claims $10 billion in sales with scores of shopping centers and fashion brands, including MIXXO and WHO.A.U in Asia and international brands Mandarina Duck and K-Swiss. It also holds the licenses in South Korea and China for well-known names such as New Balance, Cole Haan, Wrangler and Guess Kids.

Although most of its revenue stems from fashion retail, E-Land also has a resort on the outskirts of Seoul called Bears Town and a cruise ship tour on Seoul’s Han River. It owns two resorts in Saipan—part of the Northern Mariana Islands in the western Pacific—and a domestic hotel chain there that it operates called Kensington. It even has a soccer team, E-Land FC, based in Seoul.

This story is from the October 2016 edition of Forbes Asia.

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This story is from the October 2016 edition of Forbes Asia.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.