Samsung sets up future business planning unit, keeps co-CEO system

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s largest maker of memory chips and smartphones, is creating a new division tasked with working out future business strategies as the South Korean tech giant grapples with growing uncertainty amid a global economic slowdown.

The flagship company of Korea’s top conglomerate Samsung Group said on Monday the Future Business Planning Division will be led by Jun Young-hyun, vice chairman of Samsung SDI Co., the group’s battery unit.

Jun, previously chief executive of Samsung SDI, was promoted to the role of vice chairman as well as the company’s chief of board of directors in 2021.

“With his deep management know-how and insights obtained from his decades of work experience in various sectors, he will lead Samsung’s efforts in seeking future growth drivers that can change the industry paradigm in the next decade,” Samsung Electronics said in a statement.

Samsung said the newly established organization is led by a figure at the vice chair level, just below Chairman Jay Y. Lee, to show its determination to explore new growth engines.

A veteran of Samsung’s mainstay businesses, Jun was in charge of its memory business between 2015 and 2017 and moved to Samsung SDI to serve as its CEO through 2021.

In his new role, he is also expected to lead Samsung’s mergers and acquisitions for non-organic growth.

The establishment of a new business division is part of Samsung’s year-end C-suite executive reshuffle.

CO-CEO SYSTEM INTACT

Samsung, Korea’s most valuable company, said it is maintaining the current two-CEO system to ensure stability amid an uncertain business environment.

The “New Samsung” under Executive Chairman Jay Y. Lee, whose Korean name is Lee Jae-yong, is still in its early stages. Lee took the helm of the company last year.

Vice chairman and Co-CEO of Samsung Electronics Han Jong-hee will continue to serve as the chief of the Device eXperience (DX) division that oversees Samsung’s mobile business as well as the head of its home appliance business. But he no longer heads the Video Display Business.

Kyung Kye-hyun, another Samsung Electronics co-CEO, will continue to be in charge of its Device Solutions (DS) division, which oversees its semiconductor business. This time, he was also named to head the company’s top research center, the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT).

The two CEOs assumed the current positions in a December 2021 executive reshuffle when Samsung Electronics merged its mobile and consumer electronics businesses into a single unit in a drastic organizational revamp.

Samsung said at the time the sweeping move was aimed at better competing with bigger foundry rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and tech giants such as Apple Inc.

Samsung is the world’s top memory chipmaker by revenue, but in the contract chip manufacturing sector, also known as foundry, it lags far behind TSMC.

YOUNG LEADERS

Monday’s reshuffle saw two vice presidents in their 50s promoted to the president level.

Yong Suk-woo, 53, vice president of the Video Display Business in the DX Division, was promoted to lead the business as president and CEO. He is the youngest among Samsung Electronics CEOs. He is said to be one of the TV industry’s top experts.

Kim Won-kyung, 56, vice president and head of Samsung’s global public affairs team in the DX Division, was promoted to head the team as president and CEO. The former diplomat, who worked at Korea’s Foreign Affairs Ministry for decades, joined Samsung Electronics in 2012.

Industry watchers said Samsung promoted Kim to president and CEO to effectively handle growing nationalism and trade disputes between the US and China – Korea’s two largest export destinations.

The two promotions compare with seven executives assuming president-level posts last year.

Meanwhile, Samsung is also aggressively recruiting bureaucrats to cope with rapidly changing political, diplomatic and business environments.

Kim Yi-tae, who worked as international finance chief at Korea’s Finance Ministry before joining Samsung Electronics in 2016, on Monday moved to Samsung Venture Investment Corp. as president.

Lee Byung-won, another senior Finance Ministry official in charge of economic policy coordination, recently joined Samsung Electronics as vice president of investor relations.

Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang and Ik-Hwan Kim at hjs@hankyung.com

In-Soo Nam edited this article.