The public and private financial sectors have recently appointed more women for leadership amid their drive to adopt environmental, social and governance values, but the field remains overwhelmingly male.

The watchdog Financial Supervisory Service on Wednesday appointed its first “inside” female executive, a turn from its previous moves to hire women for the position from outside institutions including universities. This marked the first of such move in the FSS’ 22-year history.

Kim Mi-young, director general of the FSS’ Illegal Finance Monitoring Department was tapped by the regulator on Wednesday as deputy governor for planning and management. She was named alongside three male colleagues who were also promoted for the position of deputy governor. The FSS has several deputy governors overseeing different areas of finance.

The 54-year-old female executive entered the FSS upon its establishment in 1999, and climbed up the ladder by mostly leading teams that monitor financial institutions’ fraud and illegal acts.

The nation’s No.2 banking group by total assets, Shinhan Financial Group recently carried out a leadership reshuffle that put women in charge of its digitalization.

The firm on Friday tapped former National Information Resources Service President Kim Myoung-hee as its new chief digital officer. The 53-year-old CDO worked for IBM Korea for 23 years before becoming the first senior women chief to lead the NIRS, which handles government data and digitalization, in 2017.

A week prior to Kim’s nomination, Shinhan promoted the vice president of its flagship commercial bank Cho Kyoung-sun as CEO of Shinhan DS, its financial IT arm. The 56-year-old is Shinhan’s first-ever female CEO to lead any of its businesses since the firm’s humble start as Shinhan Bank in 1982. Shinhan has replaced the CEOs of its six units, including its asset management and a smaller commercial bank in the latest reshuffle, and five out of the six nominees were male.

On Dec. 16, Korea’s top banking group by total assets, KB Financial Group, decided to extend KB Securities co-CEO Park Jeong-rim’s term by another year. Her nomination in 2019 marked the arrival of a first-ever female CEO in the nation’s conservative brokerage industry. Under her co-leadership, KB Securities’ net profit in the January-September period jumped 58.6 percent on-year to 547.4 billion won ($460.9 million).

While the financial sectors’ latest decisions to add women to their leadership seem like a breath of fresh air, the field remains dominated by male leaders.

According to recent data released by an opposition lawmaker on Dec. 20, only 10 out of 111 executives at 10 major state-run financial institutions, including the nation’s bourse operator Korea Exchange, were female. The KRX had no female executives at all, data compiled by Rep. Yun Ju-Keyng of People Power Party showed.

The private sector is no different, as the FSS’ electronic disclosure system showed that only 7.2 percent of some 110 executives in four major banking groups – KB, Shinhan, Hana and Woori – were women, as of end-September. By firms, KB had the most female executives with four. Shinhan and Hana tied for No. 2 on the list with two and NongHyup Financial Group came in third with one. Woori’s executives were all male.

At the moment, Citibank Korea CEO Yoo Myung-soon is the only female CEO among commercial banks operating here.

On top of that, a report released by the Korea Insurance Research Institute in October showed that only 4.1 percent of board members in Korean financial firms here were female. The data involved 338 board members at 13 banks, 27 brokerages and 12 insurers.

“The figure is well-below the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development average of 25.6 percent for the size of the female board member pool at listed companies,” the think tank said.

“Korean financial companies must eye the overseas firms’ move to encompass diversity in bolstering their businesses – it would help them adopt ESG values more smoothly.”

(mkjung@heraldcorp.com)