Woman to chair Shinhan Financial board for first time in 14 years

Professor Yoon Jae-won of Hongik University's Business School / Courtesy of Shinhan Financial Group

Shinhan Financial Group's board of directors is to be chaired by Yoon Jae-won, a professor at Hongik University's Business School.

The financial group announced Tuesday that its extraordinary board meeting appointed Yoon, one of the financial giant's external directors, as the chair of the board.

The 54-year-old with an expertise in accounting has served as a non-standing member of the Korea Accounting Standards Board and as vice president of the Korean Academic Society of Taxation.

Yoon has been an external director for Shinhan Financial since 2020. Currently, three out of nine of the financial group's board members are women.

Yoon's appointment as chairperson of Shinhan Financial's board marks the second time ever a woman has been selected for this position, following the only precedent in 2010, when Chun Sung-bin, an accounting professor at Sogang University, was selected to chair the board of directors.

"Having previously selected the first chairwoman of the board in Korea's financial sector, Shinhan Financial is further enhancing diversity by once again appointing a woman for the role," an official from Shinhan Financial Group said.

Last week, KB Financial Group announced that it appointed Kwon Seon-joo as chairperson of the group's board of directors. She will be the first woman to chair the top decision-making body of KB.

Korea's major financial groups have been recruiting more women as outside directors recently in line with the financial regulator's demands for them to bolster gender equality in corporate management.