Starting with SK Group's "New Icheon Forum" last month, major domestic groups began meetings to discuss their business strategies for the second half. In the past, owners and affiliate presidents often gathered for regular meetings, but recently, as corporations have grown larger and core businesses have become more segmented, each group's strategy meetings are evolving in different ways.
SK, LG and Lotte are holding traditional strategy meetings in which the owner outlines the broad direction for the entire group and affiliate CEOs and key executives look for ways to implement it efficiently. In contrast, Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor are holding meetings led by professional managers, not the owner, where heads of each business seek optimal management strategies.
◇ SK, LG and Lotte stick to a traditional "top-down" model led by the owner
According to the business community on the 9th, SK was the first among major groups to hold a second-half strategy meeting. From June 11 to 13, for three days, Chairman Chey Tae-won and top management, including affiliate presidents, gathered at the SKMS Research Institute in Icheon, Gyeonggi, for the New Icheon Forum.
SK plans to regularly hold the New Icheon Forum every June by integrating the management strategy meeting it used to hold in June and the Icheon Forum in August. This year's New Icheon Forum theme was "The disruptive innovation AI will bring, a grand shift to AX-centered management." Chairman Chey Tae-won, who has been the most proactive among domestic group owners in AX (AI Transformation), led the event.
Since 2019, he has emphasized the importance of AI transformation at the Icheon Forum. At this year's three-day New Icheon Forum, the president group also held focused discussions on AI as a single theme. Chey led from the front, presenting the adoption of "one person, one agent" as a concrete execution plan for AI transformation. He also predicted that there would be a sweeping shift in energy, data centers and communications networks to prepare for the explosive increase in global demand for AI computing power, and ordered all affiliates to respond in advance.
LG also typically holds a presidents' meeting chaired directly by owner Chairman Koo Kwang-mo once a quarter to discuss mid- to long-term business strategies. At the March meeting this year, as with SK, AX was the topic. Koo noted that the group's core businesses, including batteries, petrochemicals and home appliances, are hitting growth limits and falling behind in competition with China, and emphasized that LG must find a new breakthrough through AI transformation.
However, LG was said not to have held a presidents' meeting led by Koo last month. Instead, on June 8, Koo visited LG's headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul, to meet with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to discuss cooperation in AI and Robotics. The meeting was attended by LG Electronics President Lyu Jae-cheol, LG CNS President Hyun Shin-Gyoon and LG Uplus President Hong Bum-Shik, among other key executives.
Afterward, executives and officers, including Hyun, reportedly visited Nvidia's headquarters in Silicon Valley, California, on the 22nd to discuss detailed follow-up measures for cooperation between the two companies.
Lotte also holds the regular Value Creation Meeting (VCM) twice a year, in the first and second halves, where owner Chairman Shin Dong-bin discusses strategy with affiliate presidents. Following January, the second-half meeting is expected to be held this month.
At January's VCM, Shin pointed to the group's stalled growth and weakened competitiveness in key businesses, and called for improving profitability across the company and strengthening financial soundness. In the first half, Lotte saw improved results at key affiliates such as Lotte Chemical and Lotte Shopping.
In the second half, with the end of the war between the United States and Iran likely to affect the chemical institutional sector, there are expectations that there will be calls to respond swiftly to various external variables, including exchange rates.
◇ Lee Jae-yong and Chung Eui-sun only review… attention on Hyundai Motor's September "technology forum"
Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor Group hold strategy meetings where professional managers, major business institutional sector heads and overseas subsidiary heads gather, without the owner taking the lead. While SK, LG and Lotte hold meetings where the owner presents the broad path the group should take or sketches out blueprints for major businesses, Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor Group differ in that operational leaders look for concrete measures to improve performance or sales strategies.
Samsung Electronics discusses mid- to long-term business directions through a global strategy meeting chaired by professional managers of its two main businesses, the Device eXperience (DX) institutional sector and the semiconductor (DS) institutional sector. Chairman Lee Jae-yong is said not to lead or attend the meetings and only receives a report on the results derived from them.
Samsung Electronics' global strategy meetings are held twice a year, in June and December, and this year they were held for three days from June 16 to 18.
The DX institutional sector meeting, chaired by DX head (president) Roh Tae-Moon, proceeded on June 16 with the MX (mobile experience) division, on the 17th with the VD (visual display) and DA (digital appliances) divisions, and on the 18th companywide. The DX institutional sector reportedly discussed supply chain reviews after the end of the U.S.-Iran war, responses to shifts in global demand, and treated AI transformation as a key agenda item.
DS head (vice chairman) Jun Young-hyun led the meeting on the 18th. The DS institutional sector reviewed the production and supply status of high-performance AI memory such as high-bandwidth memory (HBM) to be supplied in the second half and analyzed market demand. The foundry division focused on discussions about improving Production yield in advanced nodes and checking readiness for operation at the Taylor, U.S., plant opening in the second half.
At Hyundai Motor Group, with Chairman Chung Eui-sun stepping back from the front line, the heads of finished car units hold a regional headquarters heads meeting every first and second half with Deputy Ministers, overseas subsidiary heads and others to discuss sales strategies. It mainly reviews production and sales performance for the half year and presents improvement plans by region. Hyundai Motor's second-half meeting led by President José Muñoz and Kia's by President Song Ho-sung are scheduled to be held this month.
At the second-half regional headquarters heads meeting, the causes of the first-half sales decline are expected to be analyzed and plans to increase sales by region to be presented. Specifically, tariffs and production adjustments in the United States and responses to competition with Chinese cars in Europe, among others, are expected to be key issues.
Separately, for Hyundai Motor Group, attention is focusing on the "HMG Tech Talent Forum" to be held in September. The event will be attended by top executives such as President Muñoz; Park Min-woo, Hyundai Motor and Kia AVP Deputy Minister (president); Manfred Harrer, R&D Deputy Minister (president); and Amanda McMaster, Boston Dynamics president, along with key management in the technology institutional sector, and will be held in Silicon Valley, California.
The event is held as a venue to invite top talent in future new technologies, and, as it will discuss development directions for technologies the group is focusing on—such as physical AI and fully autonomous vehicles—it is expected to take the form of a "strategy meeting in the technology field."
A business community source said, "In the past, Samsung Group often held presidents' meetings chaired by Chairman Lee Kun-hee, and they were so intense that they usually lasted several hours, or even dozens of hours." The source added, "Lee's famous line, 'Change everything except your wife and children,' also came from the presidents' meeting held in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1993."
The source said, "Samsung has now become a representative corporations of 'system management' centered on the presidents' group, but meetings led by the owner should never be dismissed as outdated." The source added, "At places like SK, where the entire group is staking its fate on AI transformation, the owner's strong leadership and drive are still necessary."