Baek Byung-yeul is a journalist at The Korea Times focused on cultural content, including films and cultural events in South Korea. You can contact him at baekby@koreatimes.co.kr to share your insights.
New young leaders set to back Samsung's core strengths
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong speaks with reporters upon arriving at the Seoul Gimpo Business Aviation Center, after returning from meetings in the United Arab Emirates, Thursday. Yonhap
By Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
Samsung Electronics has shown its unwillingness to lose its technological leadership in its core business sectors by expanding its number of young executives during the firm's management reshuffle, Thursday.
After a large-scale reshuffle of its C-level executives on Tuesday, the tech giant announced promotion of 198 employees to executives.
The highlight of the Thursday's personnel reshuffle is that the company appointed young professionals in their 30s and 40s with fruitful field experience and technical knowledge in the semiconductor, cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), foldable smartphone and chip-design sectors as its new leaders.
With regards to the promotions, Samsung said that it “implemented a large-scale promotion under the principle of a performance-based system to strengthen its leadership for sustainable growth in the future.”
Samsung's deployment of young leaders to its core business areas reveals that the company has concluded that the surrounding business environment is challenging.
After the chip shortage issue emerged early this year, the United States started viewing semiconductor manufacturing as strategically significant, as officials there witnessed how the shortage had negatively affected the U.S.'s backbone industries, such as car manufacturing.
To address the chip shortage, Washington “requested” global chip companies wishing to operate in the U.S., including Samsung, to submit their semiconductor business-related data and Samsung had no choice but to comply.
Given that both China and the U.S. are two key markets for Samsung, providing this information to the U.S. was not an easy decision, as Samsung's other big customer, China, could make the same demand.
In addition to these concerns over the semiconductor business, Samsung has been under pressure to find new business opportunities in emerging technologies, and Thursday's reshuffle shows precisely such worries, as the company appointed talented professionals to the cloud, AI, chip design and foldable device parts of the firm.
Samsung also reduced the number of executive position ranks ― executive positions were formerly divided into three levels under the president position ― to two. The company said that simplifying the hierarchy is intended “to build a horizontal organizational culture centered on personnel capabilities and accelerate the fostering of young and talented leaders.”
Samsung Group Chief Lee Jae-yong also shared his concerns about the difficulties in the group's businesses making breakthroughs as he spoke of the burden he feels seeing first-hand the “harsh reality of the market,” when asked how he viewed the group's future prospects, after wrapping up his business meetings in the U.S. last month.
A few days after he traveled to the U.S. and Canada in November, the Samsung chief had a further meeting in the Middle East this week and returned home Thursday.
Upon arriving at the airport in Seoul, Lee told reporters he had visited Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates, and commented, “I had a small meeting.”
“It was a good opportunity, as I could meet various experts from across the world to listen to how the global situation is changing and how each country and industry is preparing for the future,” Lee said. He dodged a question about his view on this week's executive reshuffle.
Though Samsung didn't reveal Lee's specific schedule in the Middle East, the industry view is that he had meetings with prominent figures, including Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, where he discussed business cooperating with countries in the Middle East that are actively seeking out forthcoming industry items for the post-oil era.
The crown prince has invited businesspeople and political figures to Abu Dhabi every winter to join a private forum, which is believed to have been attended by the Samsung chief.