BOK's first female executive retires
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Suh Young-kyung
By Kim Jae-won
The Bank of Korea’s (BOK) first female executive Suh Young-kyung left the central bank Friday, leaving a legacy of breaking the glass ceiling of the male-dominant organization.
Suh retired from her post as deputy governor of the bank after completing her three-year term. She was the first female who reached the executive seat, but failed to climb further to become a senior deputy governor.
The 53-year-old lifelong central banker said it was tough to forecast the economic situation since the global financial crisis. She had been in charge of economic analysis, economic statistics and international cooperation.
“For the last few years, I had been struggling to analyze unusual economic situations, such as low growth and low inflation, sparked by the global financial crisis,” said Suh in her farewell speech.
Indeed, it was a tough time for her and the central bank to navigate the sea of uncertainty. The BOK has been under pressure to cut its key interest rate to boost the sluggish economy while controlling snowballing household debt at the same time.
But her colleagues said that she was a woman of detail, being aware of key economic data by the numbers. She was able to answer to tough questions raised by journalists on macroeconomic issues, explaining meanings of economic figures one by one with a soft but decisive manner.
Market watchers regretted that her career in the BOK stopped there because they wished to see that the country also have a female top monetary policymaker like Janet Yellen, chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of the U.S.
Suh vowed not to stop her job as an economist, even after she leaves the central bank. “I want to contribute to analyzing the Korean economy and find alternatives to solve problems.”
Her next destination will be Korea University where she was invited to lecture. Suh holds a Ph.D. in economics from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Suh joined the BOK in 1988 after studying economics at Seoul National University. Since then, she worked as an economist at the research department.
In 2008, she became head of the Institute for Monetary and Economic Research, an in-house think tank of the bank. Three years later, she moved to chief of the international department.
Her career continued to rise as she was promoted to be in charge of the financial markets division in 2012. And finally, she had become a deputy governor of the bank in July 2013, becoming the first woman to reach the post.