AI agent startup Liner said on Thursday it has hired Kang Jung-gu (강정구), former head of global business at Kakao Entertainment, as head of AI strategy to accelerate its entry into the global B2B market and pursue strategic growth.

The company said Kang worked at global consulting firms including Bain & Company and A.T. Kearney Korea, then served as chief strategy officer at Line Thailand, where he led the launch and growth of the local delivery platform LINE MAN.

He later served as head of global business at Kakao Entertainment and chief operating officer at U.S.-based Tapas Entertainment, where he helped grow Tapas into a platform in the No. 2 tier by revenue in the North American market. He is regarded as a business strategy expert who has successfully led global expansion for big tech companies in and outside South Korea.

Liner said it will use Kang's appointment as a turning point to expand beyond enterprise search into the enterprise intelligence market. It aims to evolve from an information search tool into an AI work partner that independently links and analyses internal corporate knowledge and proposes insights and actions. It plans to simultaneously target North America and Asia, with a first focus on professional services firms handling large volumes of data, such as consulting, investment and R&D, and global mid-sized and larger companies that urgently need more efficient knowledge management.

Kang said, "Liner is a strong team with a solid user base and outstanding technology and execution capabilities." He added, "Liner's highly accurate AI agent technology and fast execution will be a solution for global companies struggling with data fragmentation." Kang said, "Based on the global business network and strategic know-how I have built over the past 20 years, I want to expand Liner's technology assets into the enterprise domain and implement a customised AI system that dramatically shortens corporate decision-making speed. Through strategic roadmap design, I will open a new phase of growth in the global B2B market."