Son Byunghwan, NH Bank President, Appointed New NH Financial Group Chairman... Second Internal Appointment in History (Comprehensive)

"Best Candidate to Lead the Post-Corona Era"
Official Inauguration of the 5th NH Nonghyup Bank President on March 26
Appointed as Chairman Candidate Just Over 9 Months After Becoming President

[Asia Economy Reporter Kangwook Cho] Son Byunghwan (58), president of NongHyup Bank, has been nominated as the new chairman of NH NongHyup Financial Group. This is the second time since the inaugural chairman Shin Choongsik that an internal candidate has been appointed to the chairman position at NongHyup Financial Group.

On the 22nd, NongHyup Financial Group held an Executive Candidate Recommendation Committee meeting and announced that it had finally recommended President Son as the candidate for the new CEO and chairman.

The committee urgently initiated the management succession process following the resignation of former chairman Kim Kwangsoo on the 27th of last month and conducted multiple rounds of evaluations. In particular, to ensure an objective and fair selection of candidates, they devoted great effort to comparative verification of both internal and external candidates and selected the final candidate through competitive interviews.

The final candidate, Son, was born in 1962, graduated from Jinju High School and Seoul National University with a degree in Agricultural Education, and joined the NongHyup Central Association in 1990. He has dedicated 30 years to NongHyup-related work and is regarded as a leading planner and strategist within NongHyup.

Notably, during his tenure as head of the Smart Finance Department in 2015, he significantly contributed to the establishment of the NH Fintech Innovation Center and the introduction of Korea’s first open API. Since last year, he has served as head of the Business Strategy Division and Management Planning Division at NongHyup Financial Group, as well as president of NongHyup Bank, earning recognition for driving the group’s recent strong performance.

If Son is finally appointed as chairman, he will be the second internal candidate to hold the position. Since the establishment of the holding company in 2012, only the inaugural chairman Shin Choongsik, who served for three months, was a NongHyup insider; subsequent chairmen have been former bureaucrats.

Former chairman Kim served as head of the Financial Intelligence Unit at the Financial Services Commission, and former chairman Kim Yonghwan held positions as senior deputy governor of the Financial Supervisory Service and president of the Export-Import Bank of Korea. Former chairman Lim Jongryong also came from the Ministry of Finance.

Regarding the background of appointing an internal candidate as CEO and chairman of the financial holding company this time, the committee explained, "If the previous period was about systematically rooting the financial holding company’s framework within NongHyup, the upcoming period will focus on solid growth and securing new business areas by leveraging synergies with agriculture and rural communities. Therefore, we judged candidate Son, who has broad insight into NongHyup and outstanding digital expertise, to be the optimal leader to guide NongHyup Financial Group in the post-COVID-19 era."

If President Son is finally appointed, it will be the first time since the early days with former chairman Shin Choongsik that an internal candidate has taken the chairman position at NongHyup Financial Group. Notably, he will ascend to the chairman position just nine months after becoming president. Son officially took office as the 5th president of NH NongHyup Bank on March 26.

NongHyup Financial Group plans to complete the appointment after reporting to the board of directors and holding a shareholders’ meeting. The term will be two years, from January 1, 2021, to December 31, 2022.

Meanwhile, the next president of NongHyup Bank will be decided by the Financial Holding Company Executive Candidate Recommendation Committee.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.