Ex-LG CNS CEO to lead KT

Kim Young-shub, CEO nominee of KT / Yonhap

By Baek Byung-yeul

Former LG CNS CEO Kim Young-shub has been nominated for CEO of KT after months of leadership vacancy, the mobile carrier said Friday.

KT said its CEO nomination committee conducted in-depth interviews with three candidates and chose one finalist. Its board of directors confirmed Kim as CEO nominee and will recommend him as its leader at its shareholders' meeting, scheduled to be held at the end of this month.

KT has been operating under an emergency management system since the beginning of this year, when 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 after failing to overcome “political pressure.”

The board has been in the process of selecting a new CEO since July, and the CEO nomination committee had narrowed down the final three candidates to former KT President Park Yoon-young and Cha Sang-kyun, founding dean of Graduate School of Data Science at Seoul National University, in addition to Kim.

Kim had been CEO of LG CNS, the ICT arm of LG Group, until 2022. In 2014, he was chief financial officer of LG Uplus, one of KT's competitors.

The CEO nominee is required to get an approval at the next shareholders' meeting scheduled for the end of this month. To be named as CEO, the nominee needs to earn at least 60 percent of voting shares in favor. Once approved, the new CEO will lead the company for two years and seven months until the 2026 annual shareholders' meeting.

Yoon Jong-soo, chairman of KT's board of directors, said Kim was nominating as its next CEO because the board members concluded that he has the most concrete implementation strategy to enhance KT's value in the rapidly changing IT industry. They also valued Kim's career as a leader of an ICT company.

“Based on his corporate management experience and ICT expertise, Kim clearly presented a future vision for KT to grow as a global digital platform company in a rapidly changing market environment, as well as specific implementation strategies to enhance corporate value in the medium to long term,” the board chairman said.

“We also believe that he is the best candidate to lay the foundation for sustainable growth under the new management, lead employees in change and innovation and build collaborative relationships with internal and external stakeholders.”