In the past, most corporations in Korea moved on the strong leadership and decisiveness of their founders. Samsung led by Lee Byung-chul and Hyundai led by Chung Ju-yung are prime examples. But as they now vie for the top spot in the global market, these corporations have grown so large that it is difficult for the owner alone to take responsibility for management. The role of the so-called "keyman," who manages each field from the closest position to the owner and plays a critical role in the final decision-making for the future, has grown important. We introduce the keymen of major corporations driving Korea's economy and examine the roles and tasks given to them. [Editor's note]
There was a time when opening a big-box store guaranteed revenue. As real estate prices rose, not only did asset value increase, but drawing customers was not very difficult. It was a time when all you had to worry about was the distribution margin (profit). That is why politicians criticized large corporations' big-box store business as "like swimming with your hands on the ground."
That big-box store business then hit a crisis with the advent of the e-commerce (electronic commerce) shopping era. In 2023, E-MART posted a 46.9 billion won deficit for the first time since listing. The relief pitcher brought in during this process was CEO Han Chae-yang of E-MART. Over more than 20 years at Shinsegae Group, Han has been the figure who reads the business by the numbers, sets a new direction, and reports performance in numbers.
◇ "You know when you work with him, he's clean-cut… a strategist who answers with numbers"
According to the industry on the 9th, CEO Han, born in 1965, moved to Shinsegae Group in 2001 after stints at S-Oil and SK Telecom. He started as a Director in the management support office. The management support office, now the management strategy office, was the group's control tower overseeing HR, finance, and affiliate business support.
Those were years of many changes at Shinsegae Group and a heavy practical workload. In 1997, Shinsegae Group succeeded in partitioning as an affiliate under the Fair Trade Act, fully separating from Samsung. Chair Lee Myung-hee, the youngest daughter of the late Samsung founder Lee Byung-chul, had to draw up a new blueprint for a leap forward to grow Shinsegae into a major distribution corporation.
Shinsegae Department Store also changed its trade name to Shinsegae Co., Ltd. in 2001. Over the next 10 years, Shinsegae Group embarked on aggressive territorial expansion. It grew into a group with 41 affiliates, including Shinsegae Engineering & Construction, Shinsegae Food, Chosun Hotel, and Shinsegae International. In 2011, by partitioning the Shinsegae Co., Ltd. and E-MART entities, it established today's business foundation.
During this process, figures who enjoyed strong trust from Chair Lee Myung-hee were former Chair Koo Hak-soo and former President Heo In-chul (now vice chair of Orion). As they drew bold business directions and pushed forward, CEO Han at the time assisted them. They worked in sync as practitioners.
Han first made the executive ranks in 2009 as an associate managing director in charge of planning and management at Shinsegae's management support office. Then-President Heo In-chul was head of the management strategy office, and they worked together. Han subsequently served as head of planning and management at Shinsegae Group's management strategy office (2011), managing director of the strategy office's management team (2013), head of E-MART's management support division and head of management (2015), and executive vice president overseeing management at the strategy office (2018).
"There was so much work, but his answers were always clean. He answered precisely with numbers, which made him good to work with." That is how a group official recalled him from when he was deep in the trenches.
◇ Aggressive investment amid the COVID crisis
Han took his first step as a chief executive in 2019. He was appointed CEO of Chosun Hotel & Resort. That was when the hotel business hit the massive reef of the COVID-19 pandemic. Until then, 5-star hotels in Seoul were effectively booming. With foreign tourists led by Chinese travelers visiting Seoul, more than 70% of total rooms were consistently blocked by travel agencies. It was a time when the business ran well without aggressive room sales.
But as air travel shut down, rooms began to sit empty. Other hotels moved to streamline operations. They focused on covering financial losses by handing hotels over to REITs or selling them. Han, by contrast, kept up aggressive investment. Chosun Hotel & Resort alone opened five new hotels during the height of COVID-19 in 2020–2021. Representative examples are Grand Josun Busan, which opened in Jan. 2020, Four Points by Sheraton Seoul Myeongdong (Oct. 2020), Gravity Seoul Pangyo (Dec. 2020), Grand Josun Jeju (Jan. 2021), and Josun Palace (May 2021).
A hotel industry official said, "Chosun Hotel & Resort's moves were unusual. No one knew how long COVID-19 would last. It was a time when no one could tell when investments could be recouped. It wasn't something you could do with ordinary confidence."
But Han was someone fluent with numbers. Although the debt ratio increased in the short term due to hotel openings, he kept it at a manageable level. On another front, by developing Chosun Hotel bedding and home meal replacements (HMR), the company began generating revenue. The retail business that Han kicked off in earnest surpassed 100 billion won in revenue as of 2024. Compared with other large-corporation hotels such as Lotte and Shilla, Chosun Hotel is the only one that has grown its retail business to this scale.
◇ Focus on strengthening profitability to improve operating profit
Building on the performance he had shown, Han took the mound in 2023 as CEO of E-MART. At E-MART's 30th anniversary event that December, Han said, "We must put the glory of the past 30 years behind us and prepare for the next 30 years. The tougher the situation, the more we can overcome difficulties if we revive the passion of E-MART people." It was a time when skepticism surrounded E-MART's new growth engines.
Since officially taking charge of E-MART's management in 2016, Shinsegae Group Chair Chung Yong-jin believed E-MART needed change for the e-commerce era, and in 2019 appointed a CEO from outside, but the results were poor. Despite aggressive moves pouring in massive capital—such as acquiring eBay Korea—E-MART failed to dominate the online distribution market.
An industry official said, "When the then E-MART CEO, known as one of the so-called 'men of Chung Yong-jin,' stepped down and Han, who had honed his skills from the ground up within Shinsegae Group, newly took office, interpretations emerged that Honorary Chair Lee Myung-hee exercised her personnel authority this time."
The first thing Han did after taking office was to improve profitability. A prime example was implementing integrated purchasing across different formats such as E-MART (big-box stores), Everyday (corporate supermarkets), and Traders (warehouse discount stores). The strategy is to realize economies of scale by expanding single-buyer volume, reduce costs, and reinvest the savings into prices to boost foot traffic. It is also a reinforcement of the core business of supermarkets.
Han said, "We will shift from format-by-format purchasing—big-box stores, warehouse clubs, supermarkets, and online—to an integrated purchasing system and realize economies of scale that expand single-buyer volume by 1.7 times," adding, "We will build a virtuous cycle in which the improved cost savings are reinvested into prices, increasing the number of customers and expanding sales."
And the results came. According to E-MART, last year's standalone operating profit was 277.1 billion won, roughly double the previous year's operating profit (155.3 billion won). The direction Han laid out was recognized within the group. Just one year after taking the helm at E-MART, Han was promoted to president in the 2025 regular executive appointments. He was the only one promoted to president at the time. He is known for a style that is not bound by school ties or regional ties. He graduated from Mapo High School in Seoul and Yonsei University's business administration department. An industry official said, "He doesn't speak in fanciful, grandiose, or erudite terms. He has a clear sense of what can be done right now, and he starts with those tasks to build a big mountain."