gustav Söderström

Kang Hyo-won, Yoon Seok-jun (aka Yenzo Loon) and Kim Shin-gyu are hardly marquee names in the music business, but they accounted for three of its five largest paydays in 2021, according to Billboard Pro‘s inaugural Executive Money Makers ranking — a breakdown of executive compensation and stock ownership at publicly traded companies. All three are valued members of HYBE, the South Korean entertainment giant behind BTS, Tomorrow X Together, NewJeans and other K-pop acts, and in 2016, their efforts turning the company into a global success were rewarded with stock options that netted them the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars when the company went public last year. Stock options are often used to incentivize and reward employees when a company is privately held. In a statement to Bil...