Yuga Labs hires media veteran Won Kim as head of brand partnerships

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Quick Take

Won Kim joined Yuga after co-founding the web3 consulting agency and NFT fund Bored Room Ventures.
The position requires forging new brand collaborations, staying up-to-date with media trends and working with Yuga Labs senior executives on business strategies.

The giant web3 brand Yuga Labs hired an experienced marketing executive as its Head of Brand Partnerships.

Won Kim joined Yuga after co-founding the web3 consulting agency and NFT fund Bored Room Ventures. The position not only requires forging new brand collaborations but also staying up-to-date with social media and gaming trends and working with Yuga Labs senior executives on implementing a business development strategy.

"As head of brand partnerships, my goal is simple: To build impactful partnerships that not only drive brand awareness and engagement, but also contribute to the larger narrative of building culture on the blockchain," Kim wrote on the social media platform X. "My journey into Web3 has been all the feels, and I am lucky to continue building in Web3, and there is no better place to do that than Yuga Labs. This opportunity is beyond just a job; it's about the experiences, the holders, the community, and pushing innovation forward."

After joining Yuga as head of brand partnerships, Kim noted that he would stay on Bored Room's sidelines while its co-founders "push forward and grow along with its trusted partners."

Kim formerly served as the president and strategic advisor of the branding agency FiveStone, head of marketing in North America for the Alibaba-owned newspaper South China Morning Post, head of partnerships and revenue for the news aggregator Digg and brand marketing strategist for the sports channel ESPN, according to his LinkedIn.

In March 2023, Yuga Labs penned a partnership with the Italian luxury fashion brand Gucci to blend digital and physical boundaries in the metaverse. Yuga Labs owns popular web3 intellectual properties such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, Meebits, 10KTF, Twelvefold and Moonbirds.

Yuga Labs did not immediately respond to The Block's request for comment on Won Kim's hire.

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About Author

MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020 — joining just before bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering any and all crypto news but with a penchant toward NFT, metaverse, web3 gaming, funding, crime, hack and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.