Samsung Electronics Promotes 31 Vice Presidents … Strengthening Jaeyong Lee’s System and Accelerating Family Change

■ Samsung Electronics “Grand Class” Executive Staff

Focus on performanceism · diversity · SW

Most recruited in 7 years

‘Leading 5G’ Lee Joon-hee, 51, vice president

Yun-kyung Lee is the youngest at 41

On the 4th, Samsung Electronics carried out a large-scale promotional salute to strengthen the future engine for the move to the “New Samsung”.

A total of 214 people were promoted, including 31 vice chairmen, 55 managing directors and 111 managing directors. The promotion of executives is the largest in three years since 2017 (221 people). After the greeting of the CEO of the 2nd, the ordinary managerial staff of the 4th continued the keynote for the generational change.

Samsung Electronics, which previously placed next-generation runners in their 50s as heads of the semiconductor business division from the president’s staff, boldly selected and promoted 25 executives, regardless of age or year, who performed in excellent way in the executive staff on this day. The number of people selected is the highest since 2013.

Selected a large number of managers in their forties

A large number of executives in their forties were also produced, including Choi Hyun-ho (41), senior director of the Samsung Electronics Institute of Technology, born in 1979, and Lee Yoon-kyung (41), senior director of Samsung Research. Amid the generational change trend, the average age of all Samsung Electronics executives was 49.3, less than 50.

Chief executive staff was slightly fewer than the previous year, but executive staff was the largest in the past three years. It is interpreted as a milestone to inspire tension and vitality in the organization while trying to “change stability”. The keywords of Samsung Electronics’ executive staff are summarized as focus on performance, diversity and software (SW). First, according to the principle of strict focus on performance, a large number of promotions emerged from the business units with good performance. A representative example is the Appliances Division, which contributed to Samsung Electronics’ record operating profit of more than 1.5 trillion won in the CE (consumer electronics) sector in the third quarter of this year.

Lee Ki-soo, head of the Appliance Division development team, who was promoted to vice president, was honored for his contribution to the development of innovative appliances such as the popular Bespoke refrigerator and Great Artificial Intelligence (AI) washing machine. Two years after he became executive director, he was promoted to high speed vice president.

Kang-Hyup Lee, Vice President of the Strategic Marketing Team of the Household Appliances Division, is a person who has helped achieve annual home appliance sales by strengthening the line of innovative products tailored to customers such as Bespoke and expanding sales. Earlier, on the 2nd, in greetings from the CEO, Lee Jae-seung, vice president of corporate home appliances department, was the first to become the president of home appliances.

Junhee Lee, Vice President of Advanced Development Group of Network Business Division, led the commercialization of 5G (5G) mobile communications technology and played a major role in winning a large-scale 5G equipment supply contract from Verizon, a US telecommunications company, and was selected for promotion. Vice President Lee Joon-hee is 51 years old and the youngest of those promoted to Vice President.

Ki-Hyun Hwang, head of the foundry process development team at the Semiconductor Research Center, was also promoted to vice president, who helped ensure unrivaled process development capabilities for next-generation semiconductor products such as DRAM, NAND flash and logic.

10 new female and foreign managers

In order to strengthen diversity and inclusion for sustainable management, 10 new foreign and female executives were also produced. Samsung Electronics produces around 10 foreign executives and promoted women each year.

Yoon-kyung Lee, who has been promoted to CEO, is 41, the youngest of the promoted executives. Mi-young Yoo, Executive Director of the Software Development Group (SW) in the Appliance Division, is a leading woman in home appliance software who has led product innovation through the development of differentiated software such as the development of the Grande AI washing machine and the ‘voice recognition application in household appliances. Yoo is Samsung Electronics’ first female software executive.

Seishu Arai, Vice President of Sales Team in Japan, DS (Device Solution) Division, was honored for his contribution to optimizing semiconductor sales in Japan based on network and sales power with large Japanese customers. At 52, Arai is the oldest of the new executives.

It is also a feature of this HRD that 21 outstanding SW employees have been promoted to ensure the main drivers of future growth. The number of SW promotions has more than doubled since January 10 this year. Samsung Electronics Vice President Lee Jae-yong has always stressed the importance of software, saying, “Cultivating software talent is an essential factor in expanding the base of the information technology (IT) ecosystem.” Jang-Hyun Yoon, Vice President of SW Platform Team of Wireless Business Division, oversees the development of the wireless software and is estimated to have led to the strengthening of the competitiveness of smartphone technology through the development of the SW platform and the advancement of the user environment ( UI).

Samsung Electronics also named one fellowship and 16 masters as top R&D experts, representing the company’s technology.

Bo-Eon Yoon, a member of the Semiconductor Research Center’s Process Development Department, is a world-renowned technical authority in the next-generation semiconductor chemical machinery (CMP) polishing process, equipment and materials and is evaluated to improve the competitiveness of semiconductor products by solving the challenges related to CMP.