Samsung Chairman Jay Y. Lee pledges more anonymous donations

“I want to actively participate in volunteer work but it isn't easy because my face is known.”

Samsung Electronics Co. Chairman Jay Y. Lee is known to have said this at a meeting with employees active in social contribution activities.

Industry sources on Sunday said that prior to his visit on Tuesday to Gumi Electronics Technical High School in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, the executive visited Samsung Smart City in the same city to meet and talk with nine employees performing social contribution activities such as donation of a "sharing kiosk" and volunteering for the needy.

The kiosk is a device installed at in-house cafeterias, building lobbies and walking yrails of Samsung Electronics to make donations by staff easy. Workers who want to pitch in after seeing a story on the screen can simply donate 1,000 won ($0.76) at a time using the kiosk through their employee ID cards.

"I'm trying to anonymously make a lot of donations here and there," Lee said. "One charity I never leave out is foreign worker groups."

"I hope for an environment where both foreign workers and their children can live well together."

The chairman took individual photos with his employees and thanked them in a handwritten letter saying "Be happy, our company's donation king."

Lee discussed his hobbies with the nine staff and pledged a special gift. "I enjoy hiking, and I love eating cup noodles after hiking," he said. "I've proposed the idea of a thermos that can boil water anywhere and will give it to everyone here as a gift after it's developed."

The chairman reportedly changed his hobby from golfing to mountain climbing after a major executive was arrested in a corruption case involving government affairs, saying, "It's (golfing) impolite."

When a student at the Gumi high school asked him about his beliefs, he reportedly said, “Live hard. Just look forward and go.”

Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang at hjs@hankyung.com