Kakao Corporation Co-CEO Namkoong Whon stepped down on Wednesday, taking responsibility for service disruptions that started four days earlier due to a data center fire. 

At an emergency press conference, Namkoong said he had prioritized sales and operating profits, while taking systems management for granted. He said he felt miserable and strongly responsible for the incident.

Namkoong said he will head a disaster response subcommittee under the interim leadership of Hong Eun-taek, his co-CEO, to focus on drawing up preventive measures.

Hong also apologized for causing great inconvenience, saying that the company will accept reports of damage not only from users, but also from business partners and all other interested parties through a dedicated channel on its KakaoTalk mobile messenger service.

The company also promised to swiftly provide compensation for damages, before determining whether responsibility lies with SK C&C, which houses the data center.

With power supply back for all of the company's 32-thousand servers as of early Wednesday, Hong said its services used by a majority of the South Korean public have now been normalized.