Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon (최수연) on Feb. 25 spoke candidly about her trial and error in a commencement address at her alma mater Seoul National University. She offered “dogged diligence” as a way to navigate an uncertain era.

Choi delivered the address at the 80th early graduation ceremony for the 2025 academic year at the university’s Gwanak Campus gymnasium in the afternoon. She entered the Department of Earth Environmental System Engineering in the class of 2000 and received her diploma at the same venue in 2005.

Choi said she entered the engineering college but often looked in on classes at the college of social sciences or the college of arts because it did not seem to suit her. She added that she failed an interview at the job she most wanted. She began her working life at Naver, but said there were days in her first public relations assignment when she rewrote materials more than 10 times a day. She also said she did not get into her alma mater when she applied to law school.

Choi said those failures instead led to unexpected opportunities. “Because things did not go as planned, I found more opportunities I could not have imagined,” she said, adding that the absence of a fixed track in life paradoxically means one can go anywhere. She said a lack of confidence let her put down the small things she was holding, and thinking she was unlucky made her try her best to seize opportunities when they came.

Based on that, Choi offered graduates the idea of “the power to sit.” She said the weapon to face an age of uncertainty is that power, defining it not as simply the ability to sit at a desk for a long time but as the dogged diligence to stay put and keep digging in to the end when others grow bored, anxious or want to quit. “The world sometimes seems to like fast and noisy people, but it needs above all the foolish people who endure boredom,” she said. “If you keep going with deep immersion, even if you fall, you can fall forward,” she added.

Choi also cited kindness and the ability to empathise as key requirements of leadership. She stressed that the people who can lead organisations and solve difficult problems are not the smartest or the loudest, but those who work at kindness and empathise with others. She said it was a conclusion she reached as a CEO after gaining more opportunities to meet many people, and added that in the business world, the latitude to be considerate of others is the best talent and a powerful strategy.

Near the end of her address, Choi told graduates that many failures and trial and error lie ahead, but that is not because they are lacking, but evidence they are taking on harder problems than others. “You just must not stop,” she said.