NPS chief investment officer to extend tenure

Seo Won-joo, chief investment officer at the National Pension Service (NPS)

The incumbent chief investment officer at the National Pension Service, the world’s third-largest pension fund by total assets with nearly 1,200 trillion won ($830 billion) in its arms, is to extend his tenure for another year, backed by a robust track record, according to industry sources Wednesday.

While the NPS has finalized the process to reappoint Chief Investment Officer Seo Won-joo to the position, his extended term will have to be approved by the minister of health and welfare.

With the reappointment, Seo's term is to last until Dec. 26 this year. The pension fund’s CIO serves a two-year term. The term can be extended in one-year terms based on performance.

Having occupied the post since December 2022, Seo's term expired on Dec. 26, 2024. Though he was set for another term, the reappointment has been stalled for more than a month due to President Yoon Suk Yeol's short-lived martial law declaration on Dec. 3 and the political crisis that has followed.

With Seo in his post, the NPS reported a record 13.6 percent return on investment in 2023. It marked the highest annual return on investment by the fund since its management division was established in 1999. It also posted a sharp turnaround from its worst-ever investment loss of 8.22 percent in 2022.

The pension fund is likely to have posted a similarly great return for 2024. As of November 2024, its year-to-date investment return stood at 12.57 percent.

Before Seo, Ahn Hyo-joon, who took the post in 2018, served a four-year term. Lee Chan-woo also served a three-year term after being appointed in 2010, but it is relatively rare for the NPS CIO to serve beyond the initial term.

Prior to joining the NPS, Seo had served as CIO of the Government Employees Pension Service and the now-defunct PCA Life Insurance. Before that, he was with Samsung Life Insurance for over 20 years.

The NPS is the third-largest pension fund in the world by total assets, following the Government Pension Fund of Norway and the Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan. The fund's assets under management amounted to 1,185 trillion won as of November.