South Korea’s third-biggest conglomerate SK Group announced Thursday that it has tapped four new CEOs with the goal of maintaining its “Deep Change” initiative amid persisting difficulties in the global business environment.

The four newly promoted CEOs -- Park Sung-ha of SK Holdings C&C, Lee Young-wook of SK Materials and head of Investment Center 2, Choi Jin-hwan of SK Broadband and Cha Gyu-tak of SK Lubricants -- will join the Supex Council, the de facto control body of the group.

Park, who is known for strategic planning and financial investment, will lead the IT solutions unit’s growth in the artificial intelligence and big data fields. 

Based on his broad experience in marketing and new business development at the petrochemicals unit, Cha has been named to head SK lubricants with a mission to maintain the company’s leadership in the market. 

Current ADT Caps CEO Choi will lead SK Broadband, an IPTV subsidiary of SK Telecom, amid the intensifying market competition. ADT Caps was acquired by SKT last year. 

Lee, who now head of investment at SK Holdings, has been named as CEO of SK Materials and head of Investment Center 2, as part of the group’s plan to strengthen technological prowess in the materials sector and discover new businesses. 

Chang Yong-ho, incumbent CEO of SK Materials, has been appointed CEO of SK Siltron, a semiconductor wafer manufacturer.

SK Innovation CEO Kim Joon will move from the head position of the communication committee of Supex Council to the energy-chemicals council. The communication committee will be led by Chang of SK Materials.

Although the CEOs of group affiliates such as SK Innovation, SK Telecom and SK hynix have been retained, there were noticeable appointments of other new executives.

SK Innovation appointed Jee Dong-seob, current CEO of SK Lubricants as president of its battery business in a bid to further push its entry into the battery market. For the past two years, he has been the leader of SK Innovation’s CEO-led E-Mobility Group that was established to seek growth in the battery-related service business.

SK hynix newly created an integrated body for controlling development and manufacturing DRAM products and appointed Jin Kyo-won as president of the new group.

The chipmaker also promoted Richard Chin, who has been leading the company’s operations in North America, as president of the global development group.

By Song Su-hyun (song@heraldcorp.com)