SM Entertainment‘s Lee Soo Man has been named as one of the Variety500 entertainment leaders and icons!
Variety500 is an annual list of the top 500 most influential businessmen and women in the entertainment industry. The Variety500 list reflects the accomplishments of its members over the previous 12 months. The businessmen and women are selected by the Variety editorial board after conducting extensive research in the related fields.
Variety is a weekly American entertainment trade magazine and website founded by Sime Silverman in New York in 1905. The highly respected magazine features breaking entertainment news, reviews, box office results, cover stories, videos, photo galleries and more, plus a credits database, production charts and calendar, and more.
The famous magazine wrote about Mr. Lee Soo Man by stating:
“Lee is known to have been inspired by MTV performances that are both musically and visually strong and had a vision for the Korean pop music industry. In 1996, Lee launched Korea’s first idol boy band H.O.T., which popularized upbeat dance music with stylish visual concept. The group’s popularity quickly went all over Asia and even created the term Korean Wave, which was initially used to describe Chinese fans’ craze for them.
With such success, Lee started recruiting Korean-Americans and Chinese trainees, which later became an important trend for K-pop to go beyond Korea. Successful acts launched by Lee include S.E.S., Shinhwa, Fly to the Sky, BoA, TXVQ, Girls Generation, SHINee and latest phenomenon EXO. With its recruitment and training for the artists and production-line approach to the music that have barely existed in the K-pop scene, Lee has been credited for creating model for mass-producing acts that can appeal to Asia and more.
He was a moderately successful folk singer between 1972 and early 1980s, though his real talent proved to be producing. After leaving the music scene, Lee pursued his master’s degree in computer engineering in the U.S., where he encountered the rise of MTV and decided to return to the industry.”
Mr. Lee is only one of two South Koreans to make the list, accompanying the CEO of famous film company CJ E&M Pictures, Mr. Tae-sung Jeong.
Other notable people included on this year’s list include Robert Iger (CEO of The Walt Disney Company), Kaz Hizrai (President and CEO of Snoy Corporation), Ted Sarands (CCO of Netflix), Beyoncé (Founder and Partner of Parkwood Entertainment/Tidal), Tim Cook (CEO of Apple), and many more.
Congratulations to Mr. Lee Soo Man for this amazing achievement and worldwide recognition of his influence in today’s entertainment industry.
Check out the full list of Variety500 icons by clicking here.
Media: Variety