SK Group affiliates hire more female outside directors

Major affiliates of South Korea’s SK Group are recruiting a large number of female outside directors with the arrival of the season of regular shareholders’ meetings.

This move was apparently spurred about a month after the conglomerate’s chairman Chey Tae-won told new executives, “The ratio of women is only 7%.”

Industry sources on Thursday said SK Innovation Co., an energy and chemical affiliate, recommended Kim Joo-yeon, former vice president of P&G Oral Care & Grooming Korea and Japan, and Lee Bok-hee, CEO of Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials CMP Korea, as outside director candidates at the company’s  board meeting on the previous day. If they are appointed at the shareholders' meeting late this month, three of the company's six outside directors will be women.

Chemical and film subsidiary SKC also recommended Chae Eun-mi, former president of FedEx Korea, at its board meeting on Feb. 23, with two of four outside directors women. The 50% ratio of women in the outside directors of the two companies is the highest among group affiliates.

The investment company SK Inc. also approved a proposal to recommend Park Hyun-ju, a senior foreign lawyer at Sejong Law Firm, at the board meeting on Monday as the company’s proportion of female outside directors could rise to 40%.

Kim Jeong-won, an adviser at leading law firm Kim & Chang, will also join SK Hynix Inc. as a new outside director. The company's number of outside directors will thus rise from six to seven with two women. 

SK Telecom Co. also proposed the appointment of Oh Hye-yun, head of the Center for Artificial Intelligence Research of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, for inclusion on the agenda of the shareholders’ meeting.

On Feb. 3 at an in-person meeting held for the first time in three years, Chairman Chey discussed the proportion of the group's female executives. The takeaway was that change was on the horizon after he said, “Diversity is something deserving of more concern.”

SK Group said, however, that the decisions were based on the independent judgment of each board's affiliate regardless of the chairman’s comment.

"SK respects the autonomy of each affiliate's board of directors, and the boards themselves have stepped up to expand gender diversity," a group source said.

Write to Seo-Woo Jang at suwu@hankyung.com