Park Jin-young, Chief Creative Officer and head producer at JYP Entertainment, has been appointed as co-chair of the Presidential Popular Culture Exchange Committee.

On September 9, the Presidential Office announced that President Lee Jae-myung had chosen Park Jin-young to co-lead the committee alongside Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Choi Hwi-young.

Since debuting as a singer in 1994, Park Jin-young has established himself as a beloved artist and a star producer, composing around 700 songs over a three-decade career. He sparked major trends in the Korean music scene of the 1990s with hit tracks like “Don’t Leave Me,” “Honey,” and “I Have a Woman,” and gained attention for his innovative choreography and stage performances. Known as an “eternal entertainer,” Park played a key role in redefining the once-negative term “entertainer” as a point of pride among dance music artists.

Park Jin-young has written major hits for other artists as well, including Park Ji-yoon’s “Coming of Age Ceremony” and Uhm Jung-hwa’s “Invitation.” He founded his own label, JYPE, in 1996 and rebranded it as JYP Entertainment in 2001, launching a storied career as a music producer.

As head of JYP, Park nurtured numerous K-pop stars such as g.o.d, Rain, Wonder Girls, 2PM, TWICE, and Stray Kids, establishing JYP as one of K-pop’s ‘Big 3’ agencies along with SM and YG. He also served as a judge on TV audition programs like SBS’s “K-Pop Star” and KBS’s “The Entertainer,” coining popular phrases such as “half air, half sound.”

Long before the explosive global popularity of K-pop, Park Jin-young pursued overseas expansion. Notably, Wonder Girls became the first Korean group to enter the Billboard Hot 100 with the English version of “Nobody” in 2009, marking a historic breakthrough in the US music market.

In 2025, Stray Kids set a new K-pop record with seven consecutive No. 1s on the Billboard 200 Albums chart, while even in their tenth year, TWICE continues to sell out stadium concerts in the United States, exemplifying JYP's global influence. Park has also broadened his activities with JYP China, JYP Japan, and JYP America, debuting locally tailored idol groups for different markets.

Born in Seoul and now 53, Park Jin-young graduated from Bae Myung High School and Yonsei University with a degree in geology. He currently serves as JYP Entertainment’s Chief Creative Officer and head producer.

Note “This article was translated from the original Korean version using AI assistance, and subsequently edited by a native-speaking journalist.”

Photo=Yonhap News, MHN DB