Hanwha Group’s succession race is underway with all of chairman Kim Seung-youn’s three sons involved in the group’s key businesses.

Kim’s eldest son and heir-apparent Dong-kwan, 33, is chief commercial officer for the group’s solar power unit Hanwha Q Cells while his younger brothers Dong-won, 31, and Dong-seon, 27, are working for Hanwha Life and Hanwha Engineering & Construction respectively. 

Industry watchers predict that Kim’s eldest son Dong-kwan will head manufacturing sectors, such as solar power and petrochemistry businesses, while his second son, Dong-won, will be put in charge of finance and Dong-seon, the youngest, will be responsible for construction and duty-free business. However, questions remain over how the chairman‘s three sons, who were all educated in the US, will prove their management skills under their father’s shadow and who will be the final victor.

Kim Dong-kwan is a Harvard University graduate. Since he joined the group in 2010, he has been involved in managing the group’s new growth engine, solar power business.

After working as a chief strategy officer at Hanwha SolarOne from 2011 to 2013, he was promoted to chief commercial officer in 2014. Last year, he joined Hanwha Q Cells -- which was later merged with Hanwha SolarOne -- and was promoted as executive vice president in December, still maintaining his position as COO.

Apart from solar power business, he has also been active in pushing merger and acquisition. Dong-kwan took part in purchasing struggling German firm Q Cells in 2012, which later turned around after the merger, and of several affiliates of Samsung Group in 2014. He is now involved in the bidding war to take over the US vehicle light-weight technology provider Continental Structural Plastics. 

Kim’s second son Dong-won has also jumped into the succession race. A graduate of Yale University, he joined Hanwha Advanced Materials Corporation in March, 2014. After moving to the group’s planning division to supervise fintech business, he joined Hanwha Life in August 2015 and was promoted to head of Fintech in April.

At the life insurance firm, Dong-won has been active in merging information technology into traditional insurance business. He was credited for pushing the partnership with Chinese peer-to-peer lender Dianrong. The two companies set up a joint venture for fintech business in February after Dong-won met with Dianrong’s chief Soul Htite at the US online lending conference LendIt Conference in April, 2015. 

Kim’s third son Kim Dong-seon, who studied at Dartmouth College, also joined Hanwha Engineering & Construction in 2014 and was promoted to team leader at New Growth Strategy Team in March this year. He has gained global experiences through construction projects in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Dong-seon also recently joined a task force for Hanwha’s duty-free business.

“Although more weight is currently put on manufacturing and finance sectors, things may change (for succession) if duty-free business, led by the third son, gains momentum,” an industry source said.

By Shin Ji-hye (shinjh@heraldcorp.com)