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By Nam Hyun-woo
The number of CEOs who have graduated from the country's top three universities has been dropping, as those with diverse academic backgrounds head more listed companies, a recent survey showed Wednesday.
Analysts dubbed this the "collapse of SKY," with SKY being an acronym for Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University, all in Seoul. Instead, the number of corporate leaders graduating from universities in provincial areas has increased over the years.
According to CEO Score, a domestic corporate management tracker, 227 out of 562 incumbent CEOs at 500 companies it surveyed were from the three universities, accounting for 40.4 percent of the total.
The figure was down from 47.6 percent, or 294 out of 617, in its 2015 survey.
Of those SKY schools, Seoul National University accounted for 20.8 percent, down 4.5 percentage points from the previous survey. Korea University came with 10.7 percent, down 2.6 percentage points, and Yonsei University also saw a 0.2-percentage-point drop to 8.9 percent.
Though the top three universities saw a drop in their shares, the rankings were static, with Seoul National University turning out the most number of CEOs, followed by Korea, Yonsei, Sungkyunkwan, Hanyang, Sogang and Pusan universities.
In the survey, the share of CEOs from non-Seoul universities grew to 17.4 percent from 15.5 percent in 2015, with Pusan National University and Chonnam National University showing noticeable growth.
The share of Pusan National University surged to 3 percent from 1.9 percent during the cited period.
Last year, the school's economics alumnus Choi Jeong-woo became the chairman of steel giant POSCO, and LG Group's holding firm, LG Corp., is currently headed by Ha Hyun-hwoi, who earned a degree in history. Lotte Corp.'s President Lee Bong-chul is also a Pusan National University graduate.
Chonnam National University also saw its share rising to 1.8 percent from 0.8 percent in 2015, thanks to new faces including POSCO Chemtech CEO Min Kyung-jun.
Among high schools, the share of the three best-known high schools ― Kyunggi High School, Seoul High School and Kyungbock High School ― also declined.
This is interpreted as a generational change in CEOs, because those who entered high school after the country's 1974 abolition of the high school ranking system are emerging in companies' leadership.
"Most CEOs were from the top three universities in the past, but the dependence seems to be declining in recent years, as companies highly evaluate their job performance rather than their educational backgrounds," a conglomerate official said.
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