Lee Jae-yong, Promoted to Chairman of Samsung Electronics: The Beginning of a New Samsung Era

Lee Jae-yong, the new chairman of Samsung Electronics

Lee Jae-yong (54), vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, was promoted to chairman a decade after he became vice chairman in 2012. Lee, who officially returned to the company’s helm after a special pardon on National Liberation Day, will now ensure corporate responsibility for a “new Samsung” as the true chairman.

Samsung Electronics announced that board members voted for the promotion of Lee in a board meeting on October 27.

The board of directors explained, “As global conditions deteriorate, we made the decision after determining that the company seriously needed to strengthen corporate responsibility, enhance the stability of management, and ensure swift and bold decision making.”

Lee will officially hold the title of chairman four years after the Fair Trade Commission identified him as the head of the Samsung Group in 2018.

Lee was promoted, two years after the death of his father, the late Lee Kun-hee, in October 2020, and 31 years after he first joined Samsung Electronics in 1991.

Lee Jae-yong graduated from Kyungbock High School and Seoul National University’s Department of Asian History before joining Samsung Electronics in 1991. He studied business management (MBA) in graduate school at Keio University in Japan and completed a doctoral program at Harvard Business School in the U.S. In 2001, he returned to Samsung Electronics as the acting vice president in the business planning office and began taking “business lessons.” In 2003, he became vice president of the company.

Lee was removed from the directors register when his term ended in October 2019. People are mentioning the possibility of Lee’s name returning to the directors register after a board meeting and general shareholders’ meeting next March to ensure corporate responsibility. Attention is also on the direction of the company’s investment, such as a massive new M&A.

Eyes are also on Lee to see if he will declare a “new Samsung” announcing new management principles as we now enter the era of Lee Jae-yong’s Samsung. Next year will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the late Lee Kun-hee’s “new management declaration” made in Frankfurt, Germany in 1993. During the declaration, Lee made the famous statement, “Let’s change everything except our wives and children.”

A past picture of Lee Jae-yong, the new chairman of Samsung Electronics, following Chairman Lee Kun-hee in an event linked to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games. Kyunghyang Shinmun Archives