How ‘Godmother of K-Culture’ Miky Lee Earned the Asian Hall of Fame’s Centennial Medal of Lifetime Achievement
Categoria: Musica
As CJ Group vice chair, Lee helped launch Superstar K, the MAMA Awards and KCON, making K-pop a global phenomenon.
Por Billboard | 12/11/2026
CJ Group Vice Chair Miky Lee has received the Centennial Medal of Lifetime Achievement from the Asian Hall of Fame during an awards ceremony in Los Angeles, which took place on Nov. 5. The honor shows how Lee has steadily built major milestones for both Korean film and K-pop over the years. The Asian Hall of Fame is a cross-cultural educational and research institution dedicated to recognizing Asian and Indigenous legacy, early-career achievement and interracial collaboration. In a given year, the Centennial Medal of Lifetime Achievement goes to only a handful of people, and recipients are chosen from figures who have built decades of global achievement and influence in fields such as culture, arts and entertainment. That sets the medal apart from the annual Class Inductees, which comprise a larger group of people. Related Billboard Finance 50 List 2026 Severe Weather, Radius Clauses and Finding the Next Generation of Festival Headliners: 'It's a Year-by-Year Fight to Stay Alive' Agents Look Ahead as AI Keeps Advancing: 'We Have the Privilege of Being in a Human Industry' The award carries particular weight because it recognizes Lee’s role over the past 30-odd years as a bridge between Korea and the world. Throughout her career, she has widened the base for the global spread of Korean content and exchange between cultures. Billboard Korea takes a look back at what Lee has done to help build K-pop’s global infrastructure, and at what the Centennial Medal of Lifetime Achievement means. A key figure who reshaped the K-pop landscape While Lee’s name is familiar in the film world, she stated during her acceptance speech in Los Angeles on Nov. 5 that music was the starting point. “And me? I simply loved music,” she said, adding that music “has been at the heart of everything we’ve built in culture.” Lee is the figure who created and developed K-pop’s anchor points, building on music platforms that span broadcasting, distribution and live performance. The origin of the “K-survival audition,” a cradle for K-pop talent On July 24, 2009, Mnet’s Superstar K first went on air, raising the curtain on Korea’s first modern survival audition show. It went on to produce a long list of standout stars, and countless audition programs followed the show’s model. Lee had been the one to initially suggest that Mnet look into a program of its own after she had taken note of American Idol in the U.S. In 2016, Mnet’s Produce 101 carried the audition format over into idol survival and set off another craze. The Produce series went on to launch I.O.I, Wanna One and IZ*ONE. Boys Planet series gave rise to ZEROBASEONE and ALPHA DRIVE ONE, and I-LAND2 produced izna. Related Ad.Ventures Is Ready to Bring Big Branding Dollars to Venues The stage didn’t stop at Korea. In Japan, the PRODUCE 101 JAPAN series formed JO1, INI and ME:I, and KO1KEYZ debuted through 2026’s PRODUCE 101 JAPAN SHINSEKAI . Today, CJ ENM’s local label business in Japa