Ex-Communication Minister Namgoong Suek Dies at 71
By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Namgoong Suek, an accomplished businessman and policymaker who is credited for his role in mapping the country’s success in information technology in the 1990s, died Jan. 16. He was 71.
Namgoong, also a former lawmaker and chief executive of Samsung SDS, a major IT-service provider, began his business career in 1968 at the now-defunct Tongyang Broadcasting.
Moving to Samsung Electronics in 1975, he rose to become one of the industry’s influential decision makers when he became the CEO of Samsung SDS in 1993, and then went on to head Samsung Electronics’ information and communication division the following year.
His track record on the Internet and electronic industries, as well as a popular reputation as a ``first-generation, digital CEO,’’ gave him an opportunity for a career in public service.
In 1998, the Kim Dae-jung administration appointed Namgoong as the minister of information and communication, the predecessor of the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), and he witnessed the explosion of the telecommunications and Internet industries as the country’s top high-tech policymaker.
Namgoong was also selected as a lawmaker for the Democratic Party in 2000 and served as secretary general of the National Assembly between 2004 and 2006.
He was diagnosed with lung cancer late last year and had been treated at the Samsung Medical Center in southern Seoul.