Amid Legal Fight With NJZ (NewJeans), ADOR Appoints Top HYBE Executive As The New CEO

The HYBE subsidiary ADOR, home to the girl group NJZ (NewJeans), has appointed a new CEO.

According to reports on August 20, KST, Lee Do Kyung, a top-level executive of HYBE, has been appointed as the new CEO of ADOR. She will succeed CEO Kim Ju Young, who was given the position after former CEO Min Hee Jin stepped down in August last year.

While Kim became the CEO of ADOR after working as the chief HR officer of HYBE, Lee will be stepping into the CEO role from her previous job as the Vice President of HYBE IPX.

Lee joined HYBE in 2019, when it was still known as Big Hit Entertainment, and worked on establishing the company’s corporate vision and business strategy. In 2022, she became the Vice President of HYBE’s IPX division, which is responsible for developing businesses based on artists’ intellectual properties. As the VP, Lee oversaw merchandise, pop-up stores, and lightstick operations for all artists under HYBE, while also planning and promoting a large-scale collaboration project called “The City,” which applies artist IPs across cities where performances are held to provide fans with various related entertainment options.

Under the tenure of the previous ADOR CEO, Kim Ju Young, ADOR aimed at organizational and managerial normalization by separating production and managament, as well as appropriate human resource placement. As the goals were acheived, the board of directors judged that it was time to appoint the new CEO, who is well-versed in label management. ADOR explained that the appointment of Lee as its new CEO is to fully operationalize its role as a record label that can execute planning and management of artist activities.

With Lee as the new CEO, ADOR says that it has built a more agile support structure for its artists. Apart from NewJeans, the label is also recruiting members for a next-generation boy band through the “2025 ADOR Boys Global Audition.”

Stay tuned for more updates.