SK Vice President Who Earned More Than the CEO

SK Energy Vice President Kang Dong-su Promoted to Group SV Team Leader with Bonus Increase
SK Inno President Yoon Jin-won Earns More Than General Manager Kim Jun

Kang Dong-su, Head of the SV Promotion Team at SK SUPEX Council, is giving a lecture at the 'Asia Value-Up Symposium' held last year. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Dae-yeol] Kang Dong-su, Vice President in charge of the Solution & Platform Promotion Division at SK Energy, received a salary of 587 million KRW in the first half of this year. He narrowly surpassed CEO Cho Kyung-mok (586 million KRW) to become the highest-paid employee in the company during this period.

The reason for Kang’s high earnings was a substantial bonus for last year’s performance. His monthly salary was slightly more than one-third of CEO Cho’s, but his bonus amounted to 395 million KRW, more than four times that of the CEO. Kang was affiliated with SK Innovation, the parent company of SK Energy and a mid-tier holding company within the SK Group, in 2019 and last year.

Over the past two years, Kang served as the head of the Social Value (SV) Promotion Team within the SV Committee of the SUPEX Council, SK Group’s official highest decision-making body, and was recognized for his achievements. The company explained, "We comprehensively considered his contributions to improving the SV measurement system, standardizing global measurement frameworks, supporting affiliates’ RE100 declarations, and enhancing the SV execution capabilities of the group and its affiliates, alongside the overall management performance of SK Group."

The SK Seorin Building, the headquarters of SK Group, located in Jongno-gu, Seoul. / Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

SK Energy is the largest refinery in South Korea and is traditionally known for its generous salaries. Even last year, when it suffered nearly 2 trillion KRW in losses due to the direct impact of COVID-19, the average employee salary exceeded 120 million KRW, ranking among the top in the refining industry and domestic manufacturing sectors. Early last year, CEO Cho received a bonus exceeding 100 million KRW in recognition of 2019’s management performance, but this year’s bonus shrank to 92 million KRW. Although management indicators worsened due to COVID-19, his efforts to cope with the deteriorating business environment were acknowledged.

There is a prevailing sentiment inside and outside SK Group that values the performance of the SUPEX Council highly. At SK Innovation, the mid-tier holding company for refining and petrochemicals, General Manager Kim Jun, who serves as CEO, received 1.561 billion KRW (including bonuses) in the first half of this year, but Director Yoon Jin-won, a former prosecutor, earned even more at 1.963 billion KRW, becoming the highest earner within the company.

Director Yoon’s base salary was less than 500 million KRW, but he received over 1.5 billion KRW in bonuses. Similarly, as a member of the SUPEX Council, he was recognized for his performance in handling legal issues within the group. Vice Presidents Park Young-chun and Park Won-cheol of the same company also earned over 1 billion KRW in the first half, with a significant portion coming from bonuses related to SUPEX Council duties. Excluding SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, the highest-paid individual in the first half was Chairman Cho Dae-sik, who leads the SUPEX Council. Chairman Cho received a total of 5.245 billion KRW, including a salary of 1 billion KRW and bonuses exceeding 4.2 billion KRW.

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