I'm going to select Kang Tae-mu from Business Proposal largely on the fact that he absolutely adores to actually do what his business sells: preparing food for others to eat.

The scene where he makes breakfast, from scratch, for Shin Ha-ri is swoonily (ahem) chef's kiss. And the scene where he foists a meal onto Cha Sung-hoon because he needed to get his anxieties out by cooking...I know where he's coming from there too.

A chaebol who really cares about what he's selling (and also therefore holds the greatest respect for the work of his love!!) is top-notch in my book.

Lee Young- Joon - Whats wrong with Secretary Kim.

One of tropiest heroes in all of dramaland, the most adorable self-absorbed narcissist in the world, who, of course.... masks an upbringing that was lonely and traumatic with exagerrated self confidence

Hyun-Bin in Secret Garden - A chaebol we should all hate, but HB was so good in this role!
His chaebol-ness was top tier.

OH NO. This is the hardest choice ever! In terms of the one I liked the most, I'm gonna say the Good Job ML. But for actual best boss to work for, I'd say the ML from Business Proposal.

This is assuming that the following characters are not counted as chaebol bosses because they are chaebol heirs but technically not bosses: Yu-hyeon from Hello Me and Seung-tak from Ghost Doctor. Otherwise they win my vote for EVERYTHING.

For me, Ahn Min Hyuk from Strong Woman Do Bong Soon is hands down. He is everything and then some. Rich, handsome, suave, funny, and devoted, he is brilliant, actually works, has no qualms about calling a spade a spade and oozes sex appeal, and yet is cute at the same time. And, of course, has that huge baggage of brooding family issues he tries to make light of. At the same time, he is the one ready to die with and for his lady love (and he does it twice!)- which basically catapulted him to the top of the Chaebol boss food chain for me (what? My PHS bias you said? I go for quality of course :D :D :D ). On his own, he is a force to reckon with, not to mention the 'strong' challenges he will have to fight for life for loving a woman like Bong Soon, a task he has taken on with eyes wide open. So it's definitely Min Min all the way!!!

@daebakgrits When I read the question, my first thought was also Eun Sun-woo from Good Job. I've rewatched favorite scenes from that drama several times because. . .Bat Cave and chemistry with the female lead.

@unit - I've never watched Master's Sun but thanks to you, it is now on my watchlist after reading reviews.

Although the choices are difficult, I’ll go with Lee Young Joon of Secretary Kim for his hilarious narcissistic cluelessness that becomes clued-inness and especially because he comes along with his best friend, Kang Ki Duk.

I would pick Do Hyun when he is Shin Se Gi not for romance but because we are both anarchist and it will be fun to create chaos. except, Do Hyun would have to solve it... hmm, wait. Ok we will make another company. Chaos Corporation. For intersecting shady deals, turn grandiose plans into farce, shed light into rich peoples´embarrassing habits etc all the while being dressed like we just came out of Vivienne Westwood show

Does Ahn Jeong-won (Yoo Yeon-seok) from Hospital Playlist counts? If he counts, then he is my favorite chaebol. Too perfect to be true? Maybe 🤭

If he doesn't counts because he is not our typical chaebol boss, then I pick Kang Tae-mu from Business Proposal.

Can’t I just build my own, using the junkyard pick-yer-part approach?

Lee Young-joon, Secretary Kim: abs/torso, narcissism
Eun Sun-woo, Good Job: smiley crinkly eyes, egalitarianism, bat cave
Nam Shin, Are You Human too?: eyes
Ma Tan, Gaus Electronics: hair, cluelessness
Go Won, King the Land: hands, suits, assets
Han Seung-jo, Numbers: arms, dismissive headshake
Lee Jae-in, 1% of Something: kissing ability and frequency
Joo Joong-won, Master’s Sun: voice, grumpiness
Lee Gun, Fated to Love You: daddy issues
Kang Min-ho, Falling for Innocence: swagger, heart (and change thereof)
Kim Min-kyu, I’m Not A Robot: sweetness, trauma
Kang Tae-moo, Business Proposal: work ethic, cooking, resemblance to archaeopteryx

Or we could just load them all in a rocket ship and fire it into space. There are WAY too many chaebols in dramaland.

Lee Dong-wook in My Girl

The Secret Life of my Secretary, because if he doesn't have very expensive fish, is he really a boss. I don't think so.

I’m going to answer this with my favorite chaebol boss overall (at the moment), because I have different answers for which one I’d want to work for (Won from King the Land) and which one I’d want to date (Tae-mu from Business Proposal). But my fav chaebol boss character is Ahn Min-hyuk from Strong Woman Do Bong-soon.

I don’t just love him because I love Park Hyung-sik (although there is that), but also because he was so different from the other chaebol bosses I had seen up to that point. There is no cold exterior here, his face is so expressive and you can know almost immediately what he is feeling. In fact, he uses his whole body in most situations to communicate his emotional state, which is pretty adorable and fantastic. He’s also super competent at his job and built his company without any help from his family’s money. He knows his employees by name and acknowledges their hard work when they do a good job. Far from being the normal reserved, pained, chaebol, he is manic and energetic and above all just fun. I also love the way he sees Bong-soon’s power from the very beginning and loves that about her. To him she doesn’t need to hide anything or pretend to be something that she isn’t to get him to like her, he thinks her strength is sexy right away. He really carried this drama for me, so as much as I love the other variety of chaebol boss, I’m going with him.

Absolutely no way can I pick only one!

THANK YOU, @dramaddictally !!! My choice is Won too, and you said everything perfectly!

Jang hyuk as Lee Gun from Fated to love you

Thank you DB for choosing such fun topics for us.

All the recommendations are awesome but it is a easy pick for me - Joo Joong-won (Master’s Sun) - the OG master of rizz, swag, marshmallow ❤

Also, doesn’t Kingdom sound so much better than King the Land (??).

Joong-won went from:
"I will keep on changing if I keep her by my side. I don't want to change."

To

"Because the woman I love is the sun that shines brightly in the sky.”

"I’m going to continue to live forever by your side. I’ve never once let you go. Because, without Tae Gong Sil as the sun in my world, my world would crumble and fall apart."

“All I do is just listen to you and keep my eyes on you. I didn’t realize what was happening because all I could do was stare at you. Now that I think about it, I’ve been spellbound by you.”

Before Ro-swooning (much much before) I was swooning over So Ji-sub. I even watched (tried to) Doctor Lawyer for him.

My second chaebol boss would be Louis / Kang Ji-sung (Seo In-guk) in Shopping King Louie.

"Totally my style"

"In my new beginning, she was there."

"It feels strangely nice. I’ve never had this feeling before. My body feels heavy and tired, but my heart feels warm."

"It’s okay because we’re together. I’ll protect you. Just trust me."

"I dream of her every night. Seeing her in my dreams makes me miss her, so I cry every night. However, I can’t go see her anymore. My time has stopped."

My mother's pick on any given day is Lee Gon (The King: Eternal Monarch) and Gu Jun-pyo (Boys Over Flowers) because ... Lee Min-ho!

Easiest "only pick one" so far: Louie from Shopping Wang Louie.

He was rich but nice and cute, something never seen before in kdramaland. He didn't use his problems or "trauma" as an excuse to treat people like trash.

He worked to fix his flaws and even earned a place in the "real world" with his own efforts and abilities.

And I can't even remember another ML that was as adorable as him, maybe Ho Gu (from Ho Gu's Love), but he isn't a chaebol.

While all the rich kids were being mean he was being nice.
While all the MLs were trying to be some macho/white knight he was just his cute puppy self.

I just love this dude.

Honorable mentions: Kang Cheol from W.

Did you say tall, sweet, dashing male lead who looks fine as heck in a suit? I'm not even sure whether they're chaebols or bosses, but Seo Do Young in Kangnam Scandal and Song Jong Ho in The Promise made me swoon. They were the nicest oppa-types ever. I miss these two oppas so much. They haven't been on the screen since the pandemic started. Both seem to have found jobs outside of acting. Which is a shame for my eyes and my heart.

It's hard to pick one but I choose Won from King the Land. He truly cares and fights for his employees. He was also able to prove that he can achieve his goals, but to he honest I don't know how he pulled it off when we do not really see him working, LOL.

Jin Moo-hak, Director of Dondon F&B and according to Wiki,
“a company that started as a small gamja-tang restaurant and has grown into a global food service company with more than 400 franchise stores”.
DALI AND COCKY PRINCE (2021) (Viki US). Moo-hak, flashy suits and all, is my favorite Kim Min-jae performance. Outstanding.
Runners up:
BUSINESS PROPOSAL (2022) (Netflix US). Ahn Hyo-seop was terrific as Kang Tae-moo.
STRONG WOMAN DO BONG SOON (2017) (Viki US). Park Hyung-sik gave a great performance as Ahn Min-hyuk and that Michael Jackson move he put on was something else. You will know it when you see it.

On the male side, Business Proposal's Taemu and What's Wrong With Secretary Kim Park Seo-jun takes the top.
Eun Sun-woo from Good Job comes very close.

On the female side, I can't really think of many of them ( KDrama writers this a gender subversion you've hardly ventured into in recent years) but two stand out Son Na-eun's Kang Hanna in Agency and the ML's sister Kang Sera (Lee Da-hee) in The Beauty Inside.

So depressing.

I have to agree with @daebakgrits and go with Jung Il woo’s chaebol in Good Job. For all the reasons she stated, plus whatever supersonic elevator-tunnel system he has to get to the bakery and back. Carbs are my love language! Chaebol or not, a girl’s gotta have her bread and pastries!

Since pretty much every major chaebol ML has already been mentioned, let me throw this name in the ring. Sung Hoon in My Secret Romance. I enjoyed the show and liked Sung Hoon in that and only that drama

I will give my award to the best newest entrance to this category - Kang Min-hyuk. He was awesome in Celebrity and the best thing about that drama. The swagger, the looks, the swagger… I rest my case.

Chaebol boss roles are the bread and butter of kdrama leading men. Pretty much all of our favorite oppas have played chaebol boss in their career. I liked the brooding So Ji Sub in Master's Sun, even though the drama was uneven.

Only choose one? So many of them are the worst. Among them I must say Shin-yu in his completely-a-slave-of-his-emotions version has something that is hard to resist, but I still might prefer one of the chaebols that are not treating other people like trash.
I think, Go Jung-Won from jealousy incarnate, maybe?
Jang Hyuk has played a Chaebol, and he is ... but that show was terrible, the whole premiss, so really the best thing of that whole series was Hyuk dancing, falling, which I happen to have just giffed, don't know if it works here ...

There's "My Shy Boss", too. I loved his overthinking. Finally a person that thinks in a way I can relate to 😂

And the Ahn Min Hyuk team here - I totally get that. All those Chaebol's have in common to never be *-holes, not to the FL, and not to their employees.
If they have a troubled relationship to their family, the better. I don't think I could easily do the amount of adoration and servility that a good son would expect me to show his mum.
Still, Jung-won, I think. Or ...

I'm not going to pick a romance. I'm picking Jin Yang-chul (Lee Sung-min) from Reborn Rich. Chairman Jin was a shrewd businessman who built Soonyang Group from the ground up, was always one step ahead of his enemies, ruthless when he needed to be, and would do anything to protect his conglomerate. He carried Reborn Rich, and when his character died, so did the drama. Lee Sung-min gave a masterclass in acting and deserved a Daesang.

All of the Chaebols mentioned above are very worthy but I am going to give you my favorite: Jin Moo-hak from DALI AND THE COCKY PRINCE.

Kim Min-jae's character was a perfect Nouveau Riche Chaebol - if the show fell short it was in not exploiting that character to the fullest and bogging us down with a stupid corporate and political corruption tale, which turned what could have been a topnotch screwball comedy into a mess instead.

Let us talk about what our "prince" has that could have been exploited to give us a classic comedy of two people from different worlds meeting, coming to respect each other and falling in love:

To begin with Jin Moo-hak was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth- his beginnings were humbler and he himself has been a contributor to his family's success. He is not well educated academically but if we could measure and quantify his knowledge and deep understanding of business, we might see that he is as learned and skilled as a heart surgeon.

Moo-hak sees and calls things as they are- and without a filter.

He has his own unique style (I still envy the shoes he is wearing when we meet him).

Above all, he has integrity. Which is part of why he can love Dali with his whole heart. Maybe that last part is what makes him so endearing.

It is truly astonishing that the writers could have come up with such amazing lead characters as Dali and Moo-hak and then have squandered those treasures the way that they did. I still shake my head when thinking about it.

100% JJW from Master's Sun. No one can beat him in my eyes.

Its only Joo Joong Won of Master's Sun for me. He is my favorite So Ji Sub kdrama ML. He is gorgeous in his colored suits, a softie underneath his prickly exterior, intelligent, petty and all that other good stuff that Unit said. Did I mention he has beautiful hands. I find him cute when he is grumpy.

Master So Ji Sub for me. Unbeatable.

Well, I'll have to go with DaebakGrits since I already have my tickets for ComicCon!!! I never wear a costume, but if I have access to Eun-Sun-woo's closet (and Eun-Sun-woo), maybe I'll be inspired this year!!!!

And WHO can pick just one? I'll take 'em all!

For me, it has to be Park Seo-Joon in Whats Wrong with Secretary Kim. It used his narcissism very effectively for comedic purposes. And Yoon Seri in CLOY because why should boys have all the perks of capitalism and narcissism.

Chalk up another vote for Master’s Sun’s Joo Joong-Won. I’d also be more than happy to work under (in every sense) another So-Ji Sub chaebol: Kim Young-Ho in Oh My Venus. I’m willing to overlook the noble idiocy and “Your body belongs to me” because he checks off so many boxes including:
✅ Hot bod.
✅ Secret trauma.
✅ Adorable sidekicks.
✅ Dry wit.
✅ Adult attitude concerning sex (a.k.a. “sexy fun times”).
✅ Great knitter.
✅ Humanitarian.
✅ Certified EMT.
✅ Always keeps an umbrella handy.

I only watched ahort funny clips on Facebook and didn’t actually watch the drama, so i could be wrong, but would Honey Lee’s character in ‘One, The Woman’ count as an unconventional female chaebol boss? Tjat drama looks like it’s batshit cray cray (in the best way😂) but I think there were company/cooperate shenanigans. I recall a scene where she was choosing who to work with or something, and a funnier scene where she was visiting branches of the company and decided to just lie down on the couche and rest.

My favorite chaebol boss is a family of bosses 😆

First up, we have Joo Joong Won from Master Sun, one of the OGs Chaebol Bosses, then his son Kang Tae Mu from Business Proposal and finally the best of them, his nephew Gu Won. In summary, you can call them Joo Joong One, Joo Joong Two and Joo Joong Three 🌚

But honestly, my favorite is Gu Won. Everyone needs a boss who is constantly learning from their mistakes, listens to you and protects you. I'll probably like to work for King Hotel if Gu Won was in charge.