GS Engineering & Construction names new CEO

GS Engineering & Construction (GS E&C) named Huh Yoon-hong as its new CEO, the company said Friday, amid the ongoing crisis surrounding faulty constructions.

GS Engineering & Construction (GS E&C) CEO Huh Yoon-hong [GS E&C]

GS Engineering & Construction (GS E&C) named Huh Yoon-hong as its new CEO, the company said Friday, amid the ongoing crisis surrounding faulty constructions.

The 44-year-old is the son of Huh Chang-soo, the honorary chairman of GS Group. The younger Huh’s appointment is expected to accelerate the generational shift in the company, which went through a major shakeup last week.

Huh, born in 1979, first joined GS Caltex in 2002 and later joined GS E&C in 2005. Huh has been leading the company’s new strategic businesses since 2019, which involve overseas market development and water treatment projects, and achieved 1 trillion won ($738.6 million) in revenue last year in new businesses, according to GS E&C.

“Amid the increasing internal and external uncertainties in the business, Huh’s appointment will provide a new opportunity to overcome the current crisis we are facing and even take a leap forward, based on his past experience in actively and boldly discovering and growing new businesses,” a GS E&C spokesperson said in a release.

Huh’s appointment came as GS E&C struggles with the recent issues surrounding the faulty construction of apartment buildings. On April 29, a slab roof in an underground parking lot at an apartment complex — which was being built by GS E&C and developed by Korea Land and Housing Corporation — in Seo District, Incheon, collapsed. The Infrastructure Ministry confirmed in its inspection report that the incident was due to missing rebars, and suspended the company’s operation for 10 months.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]