KB Securities names industry's first female CEO

KB Securities CEO nominee Park Jeong-rim

By Jhoo Dong-chan

KB Financial Group and Kookmin Bank Vice President Park Jeong-rim was nominated to head KB Securities as co-CEO, Wednesday. Along with Park, KB Securities Vice President Kim Seong-hyun was also named to the post.

The official appointment will be made during a general shareholders' meeting scheduled for Dec. 21. If appointed, she will be the industry's first female CEO.

The nation's leading brokerages, including Mirae Asset Daewoo and Korea Investment & Securities, have female executives on their payrolls, but have never had a woman CEO.

"In a bid to become one of the nation's top two securities firms with optimal business portfolio and better governance structure, KB Financial Group nominated Park and Kim as KB Securities' new co-CEOs," said KB Financial Group.

Born in 1963, Park has been a self-made figure famous for breaking the glass ceiling in Korea's financial industry.

She started her career at Chase Manhattan Seoul office in 1986 after graduating from Seoul National University in business. Park also got an MBA from the university.

She has since worked in various posts at different firms, including a Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance asset risk management director. Park joined KB Financial Group as a KB Kookmin Bank market risk manager in 2004.

Park then continued her career in wealth management working as a KB Kookmin Bank Wealth Management executive. She was then appointed KB Kookmin Credit Group Vice President in 2014.

In 2016, Park was promoted to KB Financial Group's vice president.

Citing her specialty in wealth management, Park is expected to succeed incumbent KB Securities co-CEO Yoon Kyung-eun who has been in charge of the brokerage's WM and governance.

KB Securities CEO nominee Kim Seong-hyun

Kim will replace incumbent co-CEO Chun Byoung-jo who has led the firm's investment banking businesses.

KB Securities has shown handsome performance this year.

It posted a 219.8 billion won ($194.5 million) net profit in the January-to-September period, up 66.5 percent from a year ago. Accordingly, KB Securities' earnings share in KB Financial group has also jumped to 7.4 percent from last year's 5.8 percent.

However, the brokerage's sales and trading division, which Yoon was in charge of, suffered a heavy blow due to the nation's worsening stock market as it posted only a 18.9 billion won operating profit for the first three quarters, down from 67.7 billion won a year ago.

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