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 KT CEO vows to boost corporate value
Kim Young-shub, CEO of KT, speaks with employees during his inauguration ceremony at the company's building in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Wednesday, after being approved as the new chief at the shareholders meeting. Courtesy of KT
By Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
Kim Young-shub, the newly appointed CEO of the country's telecommunication giant KT, said Wednesday that he will work on improving the telecommunications company's value and building momentum to achieve sustainable growth.
KT's shareholders held a meeting early in the day and agreed to appoint Kim, a former CEO of LG Group's IT service arm LG CNS, as its new CEO to end a six-month-long leadership vacuum. Early this month, KT's CEO nomination committee conducted in-depth interviews with three candidates and chose Kim as the CEO nominee.
KT, which has been operating without a CEO since March, was searching for its next CEO as its former CEO, Ku Hyeon-mo, and its group transformation division head Yun Kyung-lim were nominated for the position, but both nominees resigned in succession because the ruling People Power Party and National Pension Service, its largest shareholder (8.53 percent stake), questioned the fairness of the CEO selection processes.
By appointing Kim as the new chief, KT plans to accelerate its transformation into a digital platform company.
“Based on his rich corporate management experience and expertise in the ICT industry for many years, Kim is considered the best candidate to grow KT into a digital platform company,” KT said. “KT expects him to drive future growth and contribute to strengthening sustainable growth and enhancing corporate value.”
Upon being named as the new chief, Kim expressed his gratitude to employees “who have done their best in their positions despite the long management vacuum” and said, “I will do my best to build a sustainable growth foundation and enhance corporate value.”
“Over the past four weeks, I met with executives from KT and the group's affiliates to discuss issues in depth,” he said. “KT is a company with many assets, including tangible and intangible ones, human resources and the pride of being responsible for the country's ICT foundation. If we build a solid foundation for sustainable growth with a clear direction, we can move forward stronger and faster.”