Chang-Soo Kim: Samsung Life Insurance Co CEO & President

There are many huge corporations run by competent managers who are not that well know internationally. Chang-Soo Kim runs one of the largest companies on the planet and must therefore have what it takes to handle such a large responsibility. 

Chang-Soo Kim is a business administration graduate of Korea University. Among the various managerial positions he has held include serving as Vice President and Head of Plant and Machinery Division of Samsung C&T Corporation. He was also the Chief Executive Officer and President of Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance Co., Ltd. 

In January 28, 2014, Kim became Chief Executive Officer and President of Samsung Life Insurance Co., Ltd. He also serves as an Executive Director at Samsung Life Insurance Co., Ltd. 

Samsung Life Insurance Co., Ltd. was founded on April 24, 1957, and is based in Seoul, South Korea. It engages in the life insurance and financial services business. The firm runs its businesses through the following divisions: insurance, loan, corporate pension, fund and trust. It conducts its business within the domestic market and to overseas markets.

It is one of the largest publicly listed companies in the world with 5,353 employees and sales of $24 billion. 

Chung Mong-Koo: Hyundai Moto Co. Chairman

Chung Mong-Koo was born on March 19, 1938, in Tongchong County, Gangwon Province, South Korea. Chung is the second son of the late Chung Ju-Yung, the son of a peasant farmer, who after the Korean War, repaired trucks for the US Army and went on to create a conglomerate that help set South Korea on a direction to becoming an export powerhouse and the fourth-largest economy in Asia. 

Chung graduated from Kyungbock High Schools and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering  from Hanyang University. 

Chung succeeded his father as chairman of the Hyundai Motor group which is made up of 42 subsidiaries and is the second largest Chaebol in South Korea. He was convicted of embezzlement and breach of fiduciary duty on February 2007, but was given a suspended sentence and was fully pardoned by President Lee Myung-bak. To make amends, Chung agreed to donate $1 billion over several years to benefit Korean society. 

Even though already in his mid 70s he is very much active in the group’s management and is said to personally head monthly quality reviews with senior executives. 

Dong-Woo Han: Shinhan Financial Group Chairman

Korean Dong-Woo Han graduated from Busan High School in 1966. He earned a law degree from the College of Law at Seoul National University in 1970. He began his career at Korea Trust Bank in January 1971.

Dong stayed at Korea Trust Bank for over 6 years then in 1977 joined Korea Credit Guarantee Fund. Having worked at the guarantee fund for almost five years Dong became more pioneering becoming a founding staff member of Shinhan Bank in 1982. Over a year later he was named Head of Planning & Coordination at Shinhan Bank.  In February 1986 he was named General Manager of the Jong-No Branch of Shinhan Bank. Just over a year later in August 1987 he was appointed Personnel manager of Shinhan Bank.

Dong became a Director of the bank in 1993. A little less than two years  later in February 1995 he became Managing Director of Shinhan Bank. Dong was named Vice President in 1999. Then in May 2002 he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Shinhan Life Insurance. In May 2007 he was named Vice Chairman of Shinhan Life Insurance. Dong became Chairman & CEO of Shinhan Financial Group in 2011.  

The Shinhan Financial Group was founded in 2001. Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, it has approximately 51,000 employees. Sales are in the region of $20 billion. The group offers commercial and consumer banking related financial and investment services. It operates retail, corporate and investment banking, credit card, wealth management, brokerage, and insurance. 

Dong has been pushing for the financial group to expand its business abroad, this includes Indonesia, the Philippines, and Mexico. He has stated that it is hard for the banking sector to advance into other countries according to the policy of each country. So the firm’s strategy is to expand their business in other parts of the consumer finance sector first and later expand it further in the banking sector. 

Dong Soo Hur: GS Caltex Chairman

Getting to the top position in a company takes a lot of hard work. It does not come overnight. Working hard in the office is the main reason why people move ahead in the corporate world, having a good education also helps. Dong Soo Hur the chairman of GS Caltex can attest to that.

Hur who grew up in Seoul, South Korea obtained his bachelor’s degree at Yonsei University. He didn’t stop his education there. He went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to earn a Master of Science in 1968 and a PhD in 1971 in Chemical Engineering. The University of Wisconsin was considered one of the best schools in chemical engineering at that time. Hur also believed chemical engineering would be a critical factor in the development of the Korean economy.

After graduating Hur became only the fourth Korean to earn a doctorate in chemical engineering at the University of Wisconsin. He then began his career as a research engineer with Chevron Corporation. Hur returned to Korea in 1973 and worked for Honam Oil, this was the predecessor of GS Caltex.

He began his climb up the corporate ladder. Hur became the vice president in 1978 and became president in 1991. He shepherded the company through the Asian oil crisis in the 1980s and the 1990s. Hur started the groundwork for exporting gasoline to Japan and the United States.

GS Caltex began producing 60,000 barrels a day when it started commercial operations in 1969. Today it has crude oil refining facilities with a capacity of 775,000 barrels a day and is the third largest single-site oil refinery in the world. GS Caltex is the oldest private oil company in Korea and supplies over 30 percent of the petroleum products demand in Korea. It also operates the world’s largest aromatic plant.

When not at work Hur promotes the game of Baduk, a board game similar to the Japanese game Go. He was elected head of Korea’s Baduk Association and its Amateur Baduk Association.

 

Bon-joon Koo: LG Electronics CEO

Bon-joon Koo was born in 1951. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Statistics from highly-regarded Seoul National University in South Korea in 1978 and later earned an MBA degree from the University of Chicago in the early 1980s.

Koo worked for a while at AT&T in the U.S. He then returned to South Korea and joined the global electronics giant LG Group.  There was something beyond the ordinary when he joined the company. Koo after all was the grandson of LG Group founder In-hwoi Koo. He is also the younger brother of LG’s current chairman, Bon-Moo Koo.

Koo while obviously having the inside track he has proven his worth in the early part of his career. He managed the joint venture, LG Philips LCD from 1999 to 2006. It is said when he took the job he encouraged employees to adopt the motto “Let’s Become No. 1”, and when this goal was achieved, “Let’s Keep Our No. 1 Title”. Koo has been given credit for leading the way for what is now LG Display to be a global leader in its field by securing a large and risky investment in LCD technology ahead of the competition.

He was appointed CEO and Vice Chairman of LG Electronics in October 1, 2010 and has been Head of Business Innovation Office since November 2010. Before his appointment to Vice Chairman of LG Electronics Koo was the Vice Chairman and CEO of LG International.

Early in his career Koo held numerous executive roles overseeing semiconductors, PCs, IT and chemicals. He returned to LG Electronics where he worked from 1986 to 1995 across a range of business areas. In assuming the top executive position at LG Electronics Koo was tasked with turning around the faltering mobile business.  He has focused on developing their own smartphone range. The reshuffling of managers at LG Electronics also continued. Cost cutting measures have also been implemented.

There is still a long way to go for LG Electronics to become a highly competitive giant once again but Koo has taken the tough and painful actions on the road to recovery.

Norio Sasaki: Managing Toshiba

Norio Sasaki graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in March 1972 from Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. Since June 2009 he has been the president and CEO of Toshiba.

Sasaki has had a challenging job. While Japan has been noted for its consumer-electronics products, foreign companies notably from South Korea have made tremendous gains. Toshiba and other Japanese companies with consumer-electronics business have lost market share. The strong yen has not helped their situation.

For Sasaki that has not been his only concern. The March 2011 earthquake and tsunami has raised questions in Japan about nuclear safety. Two of the nuclear reactors crippled in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were supplied by Toshiba. The firm owns Westinghouse Electric Co. based in the U.S. which is one of the world’s major nuclear-plant suppliers.

Sasaki has worked at Toshiba for around 40 years. After assuming leadership he has pushed for more focus on the conglomerate’s public infrastructure businesses to reduce reliance on its strong memory chips business. Sasaki has been credited with turning the company around following a record loss of $3.7 billion in the year ended March 2009.

After having served for almost four years there are now talks of replacing him and he will end up becoming vice chairman. The company’s last three presidents also all served around four years. Whether he stays or moves on Sasaki has already left a significant mark in the company’s history.