Dr. Oh-Hyun Kwon: Samsung Electronics CEO

Dr. Oh-Hyun Kwon earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Seoul National University. He went on to earn an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) and went further to obtain a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.  There is no question about Dr. Kwon’s academic achievements but he has gone beyond theory and parlayed the knowledge he learned and applied them at Samsung Electronics greatly contributing to its success as a global electronics powerhouse.

In 1985 Dr. Kwon joined Samsung Electronics’ Semiconductor Business. In 1992 he successfully led the development of the industry’s first 64Mb DRAM. Dr. Kwon was appointed Vice President of Samsung’s Memory Device Technology unit three year later. Another promotion came in 1998 when he was appointed Senior Vice President and head of System LSI Division’s ASIC business.

In 2000 Dr. Kwon was appointed Executive Vice President and head of LSI Technology. He was promoted to President and General Manager of the System LSI Division in 2004. Dr. Kwon had a high successful stint at the System LSI Division. During his 10 years there the division gained top market shares of display driver ICs, application processors and CMOS image sensors.

With his outstanding performance Dr. Kwon was promoted to President of the Semiconductor Business (now Device Solutions) in May of 2008. This was the time when the memory chip industry was struggling to recover from one of its worst downturns. By the following year he was confident enough to say that the semiconductor business would recover with rising demand and limited supply.

Dr. Kwon was promoted to Vice Chairman of Samsung Electronics in December 2011 and was appointed CEO six months later.

His promotions have come with challenges and this was no exception as it was also the period when Samsung Electronics was involved in a series of disagreements with Apple over supposedly copied designs. His rise and leadership at Samsung Electronics is also associated with the creation of the Samsung Galaxy phones that has established the firm as one of the global leaders in smartphones.

Dr. Oh-Hyun Kwon: Samsung’s Top Guy

Not well-known globally, Dr. Oh-Hyun Kwon has been playing a pivotal role in Samsung’s rise as an electronics giant and now leads the company in what looks to be very promising times.

Kwon is the CEO and Vice Chairman of Samsung Electronics. To head an electronics consumers firm like Samsung requires a lot of skills including knowing what the market wants. With the success Samsung has had with the Galaxy phone series you can sure bet Kwon and his team know how to go about marketing.

Kwon also has very impressive credentials on the technical side. He has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Seoul National University and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAISST). If that’s not enough Kwon also has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

He began his career at Samsung in 1985 at the Semiconductor Business. Kwon has played an instrumental role in the rapid rise of Samsung Electronics in the semiconductor industry. It was he who led the successful development of the 64Mb DRAM in 1992; this was an industry first.

Promotions followed over the years along with growing responsibilities. Kwon became Vice Chairman in December 2011. He was eventually promoted as CEO on June 8, 2012. Now Samsung is building a campus at the heart of American technology - Silicon Valley. He’s on familiar grounds being a Stanford graduate but this time he comes as head of an electronics giant.

Miles D. White: Abbott Dark Horse

Early in life there was no indication that Miles D. White would wind up in the pharmaceutical industry. He did exhibit traits of leadership in his high school years being club president and the like. In his college days he was the first undergraduate to be the financial manager for all student businesses at Stanford University.

Obtaining a degree in mechanical engineering at Stanford in 1978 he then continued and got an MBA degree in 1980. McKinsey and Company was his first job after graduating and he stayed there until 1984 as a management consultant.  With an engineering background his next career move was supposed to be in Silicon Valley.

A job interview with Abbott Laboratories which wasn’t really his priority ended up with him being offered a management position. He became sales manager in the domestic diagnostics division of Abbott.  White rose through the ranks and became the division head in 1994. He made his mark in this division by increasing its sales to 11 percent in 1998 which was four times the industry average. He also led in the acquisition of a company that gained Abbott entry into the area of blood-glucose monitoring for diabetics.

A management change took place in 1998 with the retirement of the Chairman and CEO and the president and COO.  While the company produced profits if was lagging behind competitors and was becoming a takeover target. The race was on for the top company position. White was the dark horse in the competition, he did not have a pharmaceutical background and his division was not a top earning unit.

His detailed planning on how to rejuvenate the company and his ability to handle pressure won the board over and White became the company CEO in 1999. He went to work stream lining the number of products under research while constantly increasing overall budget for research and development.

As was his hallmark in his early days with Abbott he began acquiring companies to further growth and gain access to new products and research capabilities.  Early on he made over 60 acquisitions in his drive to grow the company. He also increased employee benefits and compensations.

Today Abbott has regained its place as a major industry player and much of the credit goes to White.