CEO replacement in 7 out of 14 subsidiaries
Organizational slimming and reduction of executives
Ahead of the inauguration of the next new chairman of Woori Financial Group, Lim Jong-ryong, there was a major personnel reshuffle at Woori Financial Group. While the heads of subsidiaries whose terms of office had expired were replaced, Won-deok Lee, CEO of Woori Bank, expressed his resignation despite the remainder of his term at the end of the year.
Woori Financial Group announced on the 7th that “Chairman Lee expressed his resignation in the hope of easing the managerial burden on nominee nominee Lim.” President Lee, who was from Hanil Bank, was also nominated for the next chairman along with nominee Lim. The successor Woori Bank CEO plans to appoint a succession program by launching a management succession program immediately after Lim’s inauguration. It is a method in which three or four key positions are selected as candidates, and after analyzing the performance for a certain period of time, the suitable person is decided by the Subsidiary Representative Director Candidate Recommendation Committee (Self-Choosing Committee).
On this day, the board of directors of Woori Financial Group held a committee meeting and decided to replace all subsidiaries whose tenure has expired for more than two years, such as card, capital, and comprehensive finance, except for Woori Private Equity (PE), which recruited outside experts. Seven out of 14 subsidiaries have recommended new people as candidates for CEO.
It is evaluated that among the seven new nominees, two from Hanil Bank and three from Commercial Bank were balanced. Since Woori Bank was launched through the merger of Hanil Bank and Commercial Bank, internal integration is also a major task for nominee Lim. Park Wan-shik, head of the Individual & Institutional Group, Cho Byung-gyu, head of the Corporate Group, and Kim Eung-chul, head of the Foreign Exchange Group, who are currently working at Woori Bank, shared the representative positions of Woori Card, Woori Financial Capital, and Woori General Finance, respectively. Park is from Hanil Bank, and Cho and Kim are from Commercial Bank.
Woori Bank Compliance Officer Kim Jeong-rok, another former commercial bank, was recommended as the CEO of Woori Fund Services. Lee Jong-geun, executive director of Woori Financial Group’s management support division, from Hanil Bank, and Jeon Sang-wook, Woori Financial Group’s future growth general manager, were appointed as the CEO of Woori Asset Trust. The former nominee worked for the Bank of Korea and served as the head of the Woori Financial Management Institute’s research division. The current representative of Woori Asset Management, Choi Young-kwon, is in office until the end of July this year, but Nam Ki-cheon, CEO of Multi Asset Asset Management, will be replaced as outside personnel are recruited.
Woori PE CEO Kim Kyung-kyu, a former foreign investment banker, had his term expired in December of last year, but he was retained because he was an outside expert. Choi Kwang-hae, whose term expired in December last year, has not yet been selected for the position of CEO of Woori Financial Management Research Institute.
On the other hand, Woori Financial Group carried out a large-scale organizational slimming and reduction of executives according to the will of Nominee Lim. The holding division was reduced from 11 to 9, and the number of executives was reduced from 11 to 7. Woori Bank also reduced the number of executives from 19 to 18 through organizational reorganization, and replaced 12 of them.
Reporter Hwang In-joo
