"Korean-American Lee Kyuseong, Carlyle CEO Resigns Due to Conflicts with Founders"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy New York=Special Correspondent Seulgina Cho] Reports have emerged that the resignation of Korean-American Lee Gyuseong (58), who served as CEO of the global private equity firm Carlyle Group, was due to conflicts with the founders.

The New York Times (NYT) reported on the 29th (local time) that Lee, who was expected to be reappointed, suddenly resigned on the 7th for this reason.

Carlyle, co-founded in 1987 by Bill Conway, Daniel D'Aniello, and David Rubenstein, is one of the leading private equity firms in the U.S., alongside KKR and Blackstone. After graduating from Harvard Business School (MBA), Lee worked at McKinsey and private equity firm Warburg Pincus before joining Carlyle in 2013. Within four years of joining Carlyle, in 2017, he was appointed as the next co-CEO alongside Glenn Youngkin, and from 2020, he served as the sole CEO.

Lee's performance as Carlyle CEO was positively evaluated. Since Lee took the CEO position, Carlyle's assets increased by 93% to $376 billion (approximately 507 trillion KRW). He was well regarded within the company for hiring young talent and actively promoting inclusion of people of color. In February this year, Carlyle's board awarded Lee an incentive of $60 million (approximately 81 billion KRW).

However, some executives expressed dissatisfaction after Lee pointed out issues such as the practice of receiving millions of dollars in compensation regardless of performance. Lee is also reported to have raised concerns about Rubenstein, one of the founders, operating a company managing his personal assets.

According to reports, the relationship between Lee and the founders decisively deteriorated in June. At a dinner attended not only by Carlyle executives but also employees, Lee criticized Carlyle's past management practices and corporate culture.

Two months later, at a video conference earlier this month, the founders expressed their intention to be more actively involved in Carlyle's management and investment strategy formulation. Lee, who said he could not accept the founders' notification, stated, "Life is short," and said he would rather leave the company. Although Lee's term was originally until the end of this year, he resigned immediately two days after the video conference.

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