Joining NANRO Next as a patron, John Kim is Chairman of KAIPER Group, which he launched in 2025 by consolidating four IT and data affiliates he had led — SCG Solutions, SCG LAB, SCG Grid, and ZUBIX — into a single group, following more than a decade of operating experience at Seoul City Gas. Anchored by the group's flagship energy platform GasApp — 4.1 million paying users across 19 utility partners in Korea — and by AI data center equipment distribution as its new growth pillar, he is reshaping the energy industry for the data- and AI-driven era under the name KAIPER, meaning "a joyful leap."
John Kim is candid that he is not, by his own account, someone with a particular connection to the food-and-beverage world. What resonated with him was NANRO Next itself: a community of leading experts across fields who give their time, experience, and networks without agenda. He views supporting chefs as a form of angel investing — the reward is in meeting promising talent early and watching them grow — and it is in that spirit that he joins as a patron.
