Samsung names more young executives for generational shift

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Business

Tue, September 26, 2023 | 09:26

Companies

Samsung names more young executives for generational shift

Posted : 2021-12-09 17:19

Updated : 2021-12-09 17:54

From left: Kim Chan-woo, Park Sung-beom, Yang Hye-soon, Jude Buckley / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics

Tech giant seeks to make organization more flexible amid competition

By Kim Bo-eun

Samsung Electronics promoted more young workers in their 30s and 40s to key executive positions Thursday in a bid to speed up a generational shift and make its organization more agile and capable of embracing change.

Two days after its annual yearend C-suite level management reshuffle, Samsung said its executive promotions were focused on performance and growth potential. In recent years the company has been attempting to improve its hierarchical culture as it its increasingly being challenged by international rivals that have a younger, more casual and dynamic workforce.

New young leaders set to back Samsung's core strengths

2021-12-09 16:55 | Companies

This is in line with its promotions of CEOs that took place earlier this week, in which it essentially changed all managers in major leadership positions with the exception of Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong.

Samsung's below CEO-level promotions highlighted the future course of the company's business strategies. It now has workers in their 40s heading key divisions such as Koh Bong-joon of the consumer electronics' visual display service software lab, who will seek to develop differentiated smart TVs. Samsung Research's speech processing lab, home appliances IoT Biz, and smartphone business' UX Team will also be led by managers in their 40s.

Kim Chan-woo, 45, is the youngest employee to be promoted to executive vice president at the company. He will head Samsung Research's Speech Processing Lab.

In addition, Samsung promoted people in their 30s to key positions at Samsung Research's Security Lab and DRAM development team.

Park Sung-beom, 37, is the youngest worker to be promoted to vice president. He will manage Samsung's System Large Scale Integration system-on-chip design.

More foreigners and women have also been given key positions, as the company accelerates its drive for greater diversity and inclusion. In the latest promotions, 17 foreign or female staff were tapped for executive positions, up from 10 in the last promotions conducted in December 2020.

Jude Buckley will head Samsung's U.S. smartphone business and Olaf May is set to manage Samsung's smartphone sales and marketing in Germany.

Yang Hye-soon, heading the home appliances customer experience division, is among the female executive promoted to key positions. Female executives have been appointed throughout Samsung's lines of businesses, from home appliance to visual displays, smartphones and semiconductors.

A generational shift at the executive-level is becoming an industry-wide trend in Korea. Other top conglomerates LG and SK, which carried out promotions earlier, increasingly tapped younger people for key positions.

bkim@koreatimes.co.kr