CJ scion promoted to executive director

President of the Los Angeles Lakers Jeanie Buss, second from left, poses with Lee Sun-ho, head of the global business team at CJ CheilJedang, during a signing ceremony for a global marketing partnership at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Sept. 20. Courtesy of CheilJedang

By Kim Jae-heun

CJ Group Chairman Lee Jay-hyun's only son Lee Sun-ho, who will inherit the company's food and bioscience businesses, has been promoted to an executive position, Monday.

It has only been a year since he returned to the company after being dismissed over a drug smuggling conviction in 2019, for which he was sentenced to a suspended jail term.

Lee's promotion is seen as a major step for his succession to a chairman position in the near future. Chairman Lee is reportedly suffering from the hereditary Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease and he wishes to retire from management soon.

CJ Group owner family members do not like to make public appearances. However, in Sept. 20, Lee Sun-ho flew to the United States to sign a global marketing partnership with the Los Angeles Lakers at the Staples Center, with the basketball team owner Jeanie Buss also participating. This event showed who will be leading the CJ Group as its next chief.

Lee Sun-ho is currently in charge of global operations at CJ CheilJedang, the country's largest food firm. He will become executive director of the company as of Jan. 1 and start his business administration training.

Lee was born in 1990 and graduated from the Department of Financial Economics at Columbia University in New York City. In 2013, he joined the group's main business of CJ CheilJedang. His sister Lee Kyung-hoo was already tapped as executive vice president of CJ ENM last year and she will lead the company's entertainment business.

Meanwhile, CJ Group announced its regular personnel reshuffle of executive positions on Monday. All CEOs of CJ Group's major affiliates retained their positions, and 53 officials were promoted to executive positions, which is the largest amount in the company's history. For 2020, only 19 managers were promoted to executive positions, followed by 38 a year ago.

Fifteen percent of the promoted staffers are young managers born after 1980 and four among them are in their 30s.

“The sharp increase in the number of new executives this year is aimed at strengthening the company's talent management at the group level and carrying out its medium-term vision (of focusing on four new growth engines in the sectors of culture, platform, wellness and sustainability),” a CJ Group official said. “In particular, the promotion of young managers in the new business sector will help the group's future business growth.”