CJ Group reshuffles CEOs with woman at helm of Olive Young

South Korea’s CJ Group carried out a CEO and executive reshuffle on Oct. 24 around two months earlier than previous year-end promotions to improve the conglomerate’s mid-term growth strategy.

The group, which operates the country’s largest food company CJ Cheiljedang Corp. and entertainment giant CJ ENM Co., appointed CJ ENM Co. CEO Kang Ho-sung as co-CEO of the group’s holding company CJ Corp. He will be responsible for the managerial support unit, recently set up to intensify the group’s response to the fast-changing business environment.  

Accordingly, the holding company will have two co-CEOs; the existing chief Kim Hong-ki and Kang.

Koo Chang-geun, CEO of beauty store chain CJ Olive Young, will replace Kang as the new CJ ENM entertainment chief. Koo previously served as the holding company’s strategy unit head as well as the CEO of food service company CJ Foodville Corp.

CJ Olive Young’s sales head Lee Sun-jung was promoted as the beauty store operator’s CEO. Born in 1977, Lee is the youngest CEO in the group as well as the first female chief of Olive Young.

CJ Group Chairman Lee Jay-hyun’s eldest son Lee Sun-ho, who was included in CJ Cheiljedang's managerial leader corps last year, was promoted as food growth promotion head.

He will lead the firm’s food business strategies targeting North America, Europe and APAC, as well as new investments and collaborations with internal corporate ventures and external startups. The firm has created two teams directly reporting to him, called the category innovation and new frontier teams, to look for new food businesses.

Additionally, a total of 44 non-executives of the group were promoted to the executive level, including seven female employees. The average age of the new executives is 45.5 as the management aims to breathe fresh air into the group.
 
Write to Soo-Jung Ha at agatha77@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.