More than 500 get vice president-and-higher executive posts


Samsung Group announced its biggest-ever year-end promotion of vice presidents on Tuesday, with 501 company executives at its affiliates moving up the ladder.

The country’s largest conglomerate completed its management reshuffle by announcing 48 new executive vice presidents, 127 senior vice presidents and 326 vice presidents, even more than the 490 executives promoted last year, its officials said.

“We have awarded those who have led in the growth of our flagship projects such as handsets, semiconductors and displays and also strengthened the workforce in our next-generation growth engines,” said Samsung officials.

The promotion of executives at the vice presidential level comes after the group announced Samsung’s new leadership lineup last week.

In the group’s annual personnel move, it named two new vice chairmen and six presidents. Samsung Electronics device solutions chief Kwon Oh-hyun was named vice chairman, placing the group’s flagship electronic arm under a “two-top system” in which top management roles will be shared by two influential vice chairmen ― Kwon and Choi Gee-sung.

Of those promoted on Tuesday, executives from the sales and marketing department amounted to 92 people, the highest figure in yearly promotions for the division, while 89 were from the research and development team.

Yoon Jang-hyun of Samsung Electronics was named vice president three years ahead of his colleagues following recognition for his development of the company’s proprietary software platform called “Samsung Linux Platform.”

Kim Ju-nyun, who was a high school graduate that entered Samsung Electronics with a manufacturing position, also advanced to vice president rank after receiving the Samsung honorary award twice for developing handsets equipped with new user interfaces and the AMOLED display.

A number of women were also included on the December promotion list, with Samsung Electronics’ Shim Sue-ok becoming the company’s first executive vice president.

Eight women at the group affiliates, such as Samsung Electronics, Samsung SDS, Samsung Securities, Cheil Industries and Cheil Worldwide, were hired as vice presidents.

Eight foreigners were also included on the list.

Istvan Facsko of the Hungary corporate office at Samsung Electronics was named vice president and Farooq Khan was positioned as vice president and head of Samsung Electronics’ lab in Dallas, Texas.

In the meantime, Samsung Electronics on Tuesday selected 12 masters, which are the firm’s research and development experts, in line with the yearly management reshuffle.

The master policy, which was introduced in 2009, enables the selected employees to fully concentrate on their research that focuses on an array of topics like technology-related patents, energy-saving system construction and logic process integration.

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldcorp.com)