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Star lecturer Kim Mi-kyung, 61, has opened up about the financial turmoil her company endured in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a video recently posted to broadcaster Lee Seong-mi's YouTube channel "Mot Ganda," Kim reflected on the dramatic highs and lows she experienced after the pandemic hit.
Once riding high as one of South Korea's most sought-after motivational speakers, Kim said her income dried up almost immediately when COVID-19 struck and in-person lectures became impossible.
"For a whole year, my bank account balance was literally zero," she said. "All my employees were about to leave."
Within a month, however, she found a way forward — pivoting from offline to online lectures.
The shift paid off. At the peak, as many as 20,000 students would log on at 4:30 a.m. for her classes, and her staff grew from seven to more than 100.
With money flowing freely and the stock market booming at the time, she said she received offers to take her company public. One investor proposed valuing the company at 200 billion won ($129 million).
But the end of the pandemic brought a new crisis. As central banks around the world raised interest rates and tightened liquidity, the investment climate turned cold. Demand for online lectures also fell, making it far harder to attract the same number of students as before.
"Sales were collapsing, and the hardest part was realizing that no matter how hard I pushed myself — doing everything humanly possible — it still wasn't working," Kim said. "I couldn't go home for months." She added that she fell into depression during that period.
She recalled that her company's vice president, who had worked alongside her for 28 years, broke down in tears. "He said, 'I know how poor you were when we first met, and now we're going back to that. The company will be gone in a few months and everything I've built will be gone,'" Kim said. "We were already tens of billions of won in debt and had no money to pay our employees' salaries."
Kim described spending entire weekends trying to devise a plan to stave off bankruptcy, only to watch her division heads arrive at the office smiling on Monday mornings. "The resentment just exploded," she said. She confessed that she screamed at her staff, "Would you only be satisfied if I died?" before collapsing in tears. "It's something I still regret," she said.
Meanwhile, Kim drew attention recently when she appeared in another video having lost 15 kilograms. She explained that when she turned 60, her weight had climbed into the mid-70-kilogram range and her blood pressure had exceeded 180. A medical checkup revealed she had severe fatty liver disease. "I don't drink a single drop of alcohol," she said. "They told me that fatty liver in someone who doesn't drink at all is even more dangerous. Mine was caused by overwork and carbohydrates."
paq@heraldcorp.com
