Chung Ki-sun, senior vice chairman of HD Hyundai, was promoted to chairman on the 17th. Chung, the third-generation owner of HD Hyundai, rose to the chairmanship less than a year after being promoted to CEO and senior vice chairman of HD Hyundai in Nov. last year.
HD Hyundai said it carried out executive appointments that promoted the senior vice chairman Chung to chairman and chairman Kwon Oh-gap to honorary chairman. Honorary chairman Kwon is expected to step down as CEO of HD Hyundai after the shareholders meeting in Mar. next year.
Through this personnel move, the chairman Chung became co-CEO of HD Hyundai XiteSolution. The company said it is to overcome the crisis in the construction equipment business, which has recently posted poor results, and to secure new growth engines.
Through the executive appointments that day, Lee Sang-gyun, president of HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, and Cho Young-cheol, president of HD Hyundai XiteSolution, were each promoted to vice chairman, and vice chairman Cho, together with chairman Chung Ki-sun, will serve as co-CEO of HD Hyundai.
Also, Geum Seok-ho, executive vice president of HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, was promoted to president and was named co-CEO of HD Hyundai Heavy Industries alongside vice chairman Lee Sang-gyun. HD Hyundai said president Geum will oversee management support, finance, asset, and shared growth.
Kim Hyung-kwan, president of HD Hyundai Mipo, which will be merged into HD Hyundai Heavy Industries on Dec. 1, will move to become CEO of HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering and serve as co-CEO with chairman Chung. Incumbent CEO Kim Sung-joon was promoted to president and was named CEO of HD Hyndai Marine Solution.
Moon Jae-young, an executive vice president who was promoted to president, was named CEO of HD Hyundai Construction Equipment, which is set for integration next year. Vice president Song Hee-jun was named CEO of HD Hyundai XiteSolution, the construction equipment institutional sector intermediate holding company. In the appointments that day, Kim Wan-soo, CEO of HD Hyundai Robotics, was promoted from executive vice president to president.
HD Hyundai said that, as it prepares for the mergers of HD Hyundai Heavy Industries with HD Hyundai Mipo and HD Hyundai Construction Equipment with HD Hyundai Infracore, it carried out the appointments earlier than usual to reduce organizational confusion and maximize synergy from the mergers. The CEO nominees announced that day are to be formally appointed after future shareholders meetings and board meetings.
An HD Hyundai official said, "This round of appointments reflects the will to pioneer a new era with new leadership amid an increasingly fierce and diversified domestic and overseas business environment," adding, "While actively responding to change, based on harmony and cooperation between the new and previous management, we will not only grow our existing businesses but also, through innovation across all areas, devote ourselves to discovering new growth engines, creating an opportunity to leap forward as the world's leading comprehensive heavy industry group in both name and reality."