Korea's second-largest conglomerate, SK Group, announced its end-of-year executive reshuffle and organizational restructuring on Thursday, reflecting efforts to regroup its business portfolio to combat looming uncertainties.

According to the group, it appointed 75 new executives and promoted two new presidents during its regular executive reshuffle announced on Thursday.

The number of its newly appointed executives dropped from 82 in 2023, 145 in 2022 and 164 in 2021, showcasing the group's focus on streamlining its top brass for more agile decision-making.

Unlike initial speculations, SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung was not promoted to vice chairman from president.

Industry officials had anticipated Kwak's promotion in the latest reshuffle, as SK hynix in the third quarter of this year outpaced Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor division for the first time in terms of quarterly operating profit, consolidating itself as the world's leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips for artificial intelligence processors.

Instead, the company promoted Ahn Hyun, head of solution development, as a president, to accelerate the company's momentum in the HBM market competition.

Aside from Ahn, SK SUPEX Council Vice President Son Hyun-ho was named as SK Discovery CEO.

SK Group said his experience in devising business strategies at the SUPEX Council, the group’s control tower, will help in improving the competitiveness of the intermediate holding company overseeing its pharmaceutical, energy, chemical and real-estate development subsidiaries.

“Most of our major affiliates have already reshuffled their executives on an irregular basis to respond swiftly to the changing business environment,” an SK Group official said. “SK Innovation’s affiliates appointed three engineers as their CEOs in October, while SK Square and SK Ecoplant replaced each of their CEOs in July and May, respectively.”

The group also sent SK hynix's executives to other affiliates to "share the expertise of the leading subsidiary." In line with this, former SK hynix R&D chief Pi Seung-ho was named the manufacturing head of SK On, the group's battery manufacturing arm.

For its leadership in the artificial intelligence sector, organizational restructuring took place at the group’s holding company and SK Telecom.

SK Americas, which was founded earlier this year for the group’s business in North America, appointed Senior Vice President Paul Delaney to oversee government relations in the region. The former deputy chief of staff at the Office of the United States Trade Representative joined the company in July.

SK Innovation hired the former program director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy under the U.S. Department of Energy as the company’s chief technology officer.

SK Biopharmaceuticals Vice President Chey Yoon-chung, the oldest daughter of SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, was tasked with finding the conglomerate’s new growth engines at a newly opened office of the group’s holding company while maintaining her position at the biopharmaceutical unit.

By: DocMemory
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