Meritocracy spreads to financial firm's reshuffle

By Nam Hyun-woo

A number of surprise promotions were made in domestic financial firms’ year-end reshuffle, showing the government’s meritocracy push is starting to blend into their personnel management.

On Dec. 28, KEB Hana Bank named Han Jun-seong as vice president to lead its Future Financial Group. Han garnered keen attention among industry insiders because he has no educational credentials higher than high school -- a rare case given most of his peers have MBA degrees or graduate school diplomas or are at least university graduates.

Since joining the bank in 1987, Han has spent most of his career at the bank’s tech- or future-oriented departments, nurturing his expertise in the field.

Also with the announcement, the 50-year-old became one of Korea’s youngest bank executives. Along with Han, two other new vice presidents ― Chang Kyung-hoon, head of the newly established retail business group, and Chung Jeong-hee, head of the corporate business group ― are also in their 50s, showing that age, educational background and salary steps are having less influence in promotions.

A day before KEB Hana’s announcement, NongHyup (NH) Financial Group also made a surprise promotion. It named Lee Seong-gweon, head of NH Bank’s fund management department, as the new CEO of NongHyup Futures. In its announcement, the group described Lee’s leap as “extraordinary” because it had been only promoting vice presidents to CEOs before.

“Lee is a specialist in fund management having accumulated field experience,” the group said. “Given the rising financial uncertainties and the characteristic of futures, the group believes it would be best to appoint an expert in the field as CEO.”

On the same day, KB Financial Group announced that it named Kim Hae-kyung as CEO of KB Credit Information. The 55-year-old is the first female to head a KB group affiliate. She has been serving as head officer of a number of KB Kookmin Bank’s regional offices and Seoul branches and the group said it highly appraised her leadership focusing on mid- and long-term planning.

“KB has a corporate culture of prioritizing performance over other factors including gender,” a KB Financial Group official said.

Though financial firms made several surprise promotions for those whose showed strong performances, most of them opted to make a “stable” reshuffle in a broader view before scheduled changes in their CEO or chairman positions.

Shinhan Bank and Shinhan Financial Group will face a huge leadership change in March when group Chairman Han Dong-woo and bank President Cho Yong-byoung will see their terms expire.

Amid the scheduled changes, Shinhan opted to maintain 15 out of 27 executives who were subjected to this year’s reshuffle. Rumors allege that Shinhan will conduct a large-scale reshuffle after March.

NongHyup Financial Group, whose Chairman Kim Yong-hwan’s term will end in April, also had NongHyup Bank CEO Lee Kyung-seob remain in office in order to seek stability.

KB Kookmin, whose CEO Yoon Jong-kyoo’s term ends in November next year, also promoted or rehired 12 out of 13 executives whose terms end soon.