On the 16th, KT's board nomination committee finalized Park Yun-young (63), former head of KT's corporations division (president), as the final candidate for the next CEO. Whether the new CEO is confirmed will be decided at KT's shareholders' meeting in Mar. next year. The term is three years.
The KT board nomination committee conducted in-depth interviews that day with three people — Park Yun-young, former head of KT's corporations division (president); Joo Hyeong-cheol, former head of SK Communications; and Hong Won-pyo, former vice chairman of SK shieldus — and selected Park as the final candidate. The committee said it focused its review on △ enhancing corporate value △ securing internal and external trust and building a cooperative management environment △ presenting a management vision and direction for change and innovation △ laying the foundation for sustainable growth, reflecting the CEO eligibility requirements in the articles of incorporation, the evaluation results of the external selection advisory panel, and opinions of key stakeholders.
The board assessed the final candidate Park as "a figure who has achieved results in digital transformation (DX) and business-to-business (B2B) based on KT business experience and technology-driven management capabilities." Park, the final candidate, emphasized the need to keep promises to shareholders and the market and was said to have presented practical response plans to current issues. The board concluded that, based on these capabilities, Park Yun-young is the right person to lead the strengthening of KT's future competitiveness.
Kim Yong-heon, chair of KT's board, said, "We judge that final candidate Park Yun-young is the right person to establish a foundation for sustainable growth under a new management vision, lead change and innovation to swiftly restore internal and external trust, and build cooperative relationships with stakeholders."
Park, the final candidate, was born in 1962, graduated from Seoul National University's civil engineering department, and earned master's and doctoral degrees in civil engineering. He joined in 1992 as a network technology researcher when KT was Korea Telecom, moved to SK, and later returned to KT. He then served as head of the future business development group at KT Institute of Convergence Technology, head of corporations business consulting, and head of the corporations business division (president). During this period, he handled convergence, future businesses, and corporations businesses, and is credited with boosting performance in the B2B (business-to-business) business. He also has extensive experience participating in overseas projects. At the end of 2019, Park emerged as the strongest rival to former CEO Koo Hyun-mo in the process to select a new CEO to succeed former KT chairman Hwang Chang-gyu, but after Koo became the final CEO, Park maintained a "two-top system" before leaving KT in Dec. 2020.
This year, KT experienced an incident in which unauthorized small-amount payments occurred for a total of 368 customers, resulting in the leakage of personal information of 22,227 people. KT is currently under investigation by a government-private joint investigation team due to the hacking incident. Experts believe the final CEO will be someone who can quickly resolve the current hacking situation and the loosened organizational culture while securing future growth engines centered on artificial intelligence (AI). In addition, the ability to command 83 subsidiaries and 14,000 employees is expected to be a key evaluation factor.
The company will hold a shareholders' meeting in Mar. next year to put the appointment of a new CEO to a vote. The requirement for appointment at the shareholders' meeting is "60% or more of shares present + a favorable vote equal to 25% or more of total shares." If the appointment plan passes the meeting, Park, the final candidate, can begin a three-year term as KT's new CEO, but if it is voted down, the board will have to restart the CEO candidate selection from scratch. As of the end of Sep. this year, KT's largest shareholder is Hyundai Motor with a 4.86% equity stake, and the second-largest is Hyundai Mobis with 3.21%.