By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn, 55, has been a newsmaker tycoon.
He took office in 1981 at the age of 29 when his father Kim Jong-hee, the founding chairman, passed away.
Kim is currently director of the U.N. Association of the Republic of Korea, chairman of the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, vice chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries and honorary president of the General Association of the Asian Sports Federations.
Kim has made the group the nation's 10th largest conglomerate through his powerful driving force. The group acquired Hanyang Chemical, which is now Hanwha Chemical, in 1982 and Korea Life Insurance in 2002.
At the time of the acquisition, many management experts opposed it. But Kim steamed ahead, illustrating his business style _ pushing ahead with things that he believes to be right regardless of advice from people around him.
In 1993, he was arrested on charges of foreign currency law violation, as he purchased a luxury house in the U.S. by secretly transferring foreign currency abroad.
In 2004 when the prosecution was investigating business groups' alleged illegal political fund ahead of the 2001 presidential election, Kim eluded the investigation by fleeing to the U.S. a day before the Ministry of Justice imposed an overseas travel ban on him.
People evaluate Kim's personality very differently _ bossy on the one hand and tender on the other.
It is said he values loyalty. His late father had promised to host a party for then-U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Richard Walker's 60th birthday but passed away before that day. Kim kept the promise on behalf of the late father, hosting the party in 1982.
Kim, whose three sons have studied or are studying overseas, granted special vacation and travel costs to group executives who were in a similar situation to his, so that they could have family reunions.
The number of his guards has also been a source of gossip. When he enters his office building, dozens of bodyguards bow to him, and he always takes many of them with him to meetings or events, which sometimes irritates other participants.