Weight is being placed on the possibility that the reappointment of Chief Executive Park Jae-hyun, a professional manager backed by the founder family's mother and daughter of the Hanmi Pharmaceutical Group, could fall through.
As the new CEO, Hwang Sang-yeon, head of the private equity (PE) institutional sector at HB Investment and formerly from the securities and investment industry, is being mentioned. If Hwang is appointed, it would be the first time in Hanmi Pharmaceutical's 53-year history that an outsider, not a "Hanmi man," takes the helm of Hanmi Pharmaceutical.
Holding company Hanmi Science plans to convene its board of directors on the afternoon of the 12th to discuss the appointment of directors for Hanmi Pharmaceutical, the core operating company. The agenda items resolved by the board that day will be submitted to the regular shareholders meeting of Hanmi Pharmaceutical on the 31st.
Of the 10 members currently on Hanmi Pharmaceutical's board, the terms of CEO Park Jae-hyun, Director Park Myeong-hee, Audit Committee Chair Kim Tae-yun, Audit Committee member Yoon Young-gak, and Outside Director Yoon Do-heum are set to expire this month.
The Hanmi Science board plans to discuss an agenda item to reappoint Audit Committee Chair Kim and to newly appoint as director candidates Hwang Sang-yeon, head of the PE institutional sector at HB Investment; Kim Na-young, head of new product development at Hanmi Pharmaceutical; former lawmaker Chae Yi-bae; and Han Tae-joon, president of Ghent University Global Campus.
The holding company's board has effectively set a course to replace the CEO by excluding Park from the Hanmi Pharmaceutical board. Park has served as chair of the Hanmi Pharmaceutical board since being appointed an inside director in Mar. 2023.
Hwang Sang-yeon, the new CEO candidate and head of the PE institutional sector at HB Investment, holds bachelor's and master's degrees in chemistry from Seoul National University. Hwang previously served as head of research at Mirae Asset Securities, chief investment officer (CIO) at Allianz Global Investors, and CEO of Chong Kun Dang Holdings, before being recruited in 2025 as head (vice president) of the newly established private equity fund (PEF) division at the venture capital firm HB Investment.
If Hwang's appointment is confirmed, Hanmi Pharmaceutical will, for the first time since its founding, adopt a CEO system led by an externally recruited executive. Up to now, former and current chiefs of Hanmi Pharmaceutical (Lee Kwan-soon, Woo Jong-soo, Kwon Se-chang, and Park Jae-hyun) were professional managers promoted from within who shared the management philosophy of the late founder, Chairman Lim Sung-ki, and drove Hanmi Pharmaceutical's growth for decades.
Observers say the backdrop to these personnel discussions lies in a conflict among major shareholders of the Hanmi Pharmaceutical Group.
When the founder family split into a mother-daughter side and a brothers side and fought over control, Chair Song Young-sook of the Hanmi Group and Vice Chair Lim Ju-hyeon, among others on the mother-daughter side, supported CEO Park Jae-hyun, saying the professional management system that had ensured organizational stability and normalized operations should be maintained.
Afterward, Chair Shin Dong-kuk threw his support behind the mother and daughter, and the management dispute settled down for the time being. At the time, Shin signed a shareholder agreement with the mother-daughter side. It guaranteed prior consultation and a right of first refusal in the event of an equity sale and stipulated a penalty of 60 billion won for violations.
However, when Hanyang Precision Co. issued exchangeable bonds worth 38 billion won in Jul. last year using its equity as collateral, disputes continued over whether this violated the agreement. The mother-daughter side filed suit, arguing it was effectively no different from disposing of the equity, and has provisionally seized Shin's home and a portion of the equity.
The flashpoint was the handling of an in-house sexual harassment case late last year. When CEO Park pushed for heavy disciplinary action against the executive identified as the perpetrator, claims surfaced that Chair Shin blocked it. Park's side also claimed there was interference not only in personnel matters but across management. Shin strongly opposed Park's reappointment.
Among Hanmi Pharmaceutical employees, there is also an interpretation that professional manager CEO Park Jae-hyun has effectively become a "scapegoat" due to conflict among major shareholders, raising expectations that discord could intensify around the shareholders meeting.