"44% of Samsung Outside Directors Are Former Bureaucrats or Legal Professionals"

CEO Score, Survey on Outside Directors Status
3 out of 10 Outside Directors in Large Corporations Are Former Bureaucrats or Legal Professionals
Proportion of Female Outside Directors Rises by 12.4%p

Among 10 outside directors of large corporations, 3 are former public officials or lawyers who were former judges or prosecutors. Among outside directors with a background as public officials, those from the National Tax Service were the most numerous.

On the 8th, CEO Score, a corporate data research institute, announced that as of the end of October, among 343 listed companies in large business groups, 387 out of a total of 1,111 outside directors, accounting for 34.8%, were former bureaucrats or legal professionals.

Following them were academia at 33.3% (370 people), business sector at 19.3% (214 people), tax and accounting at 5.3% (59 people), media at 2.7% (30 people), and public institutions at 2.3% (25 people) in terms of the proportion of outside directors' backgrounds.

Top 10 Large Corporations by Number of Outside Directors from Bureaucratic and Legal Backgrounds. [Provided by CEO Score]

Four business groups?Hoban Construction, Janggeum Shipping, Korea HC, and Bando Holdings?had 100% of their outside directors from bureaucratic or legal backgrounds. Additionally, 17 groups including Dongwon (71.4%), Shinsegae (69.6%), Jungheung Construction (66.7%), Sampyo (66.7%), Samchully (60.0%), Yujin (57.1%), Doosan (56.0%), Hyosung (55.6%), and Kolon (53.8%) had more than 50% of their outside directors from bureaucratic or legal backgrounds.

The company with the highest number of outside directors from bureaucratic or legal backgrounds was Samsung. Among Samsung’s 59 outside directors, 26 (44.1%) were from bureaucratic or legal backgrounds. They were followed by Hyundai Department Store (20 people) and SK (20 people).

Among outside directors with bureaucratic backgrounds, those from the National Tax Service were the most numerous at 48 (21.3%). They were followed by the Fair Trade Commission with 25 (11.1%), the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy with 20 (8.9%), the Ministry of Economy and Finance with 16 (7.1%), the Financial Supervisory Service with 14 (6.2%), the Financial Services Commission with 12 (5.3%), and the Board of Audit and Inspection with 10 (4.4%).

The proportion of female outside directors has been increasing since the revision of the Capital Market Act. As of the end of October, the proportion of female outside directors was 16.9% (188 people), up 12.4 percentage points from 4.5% (43 people) at the end of 2020. The revised Capital Market Act, which has been in effect since August 2020, stipulates that the board of directors of listed companies with total assets of 2 trillion won or more must not be monopolized by one gender.

As of the end of October this year, SK had the highest number of female outside directors. The total number of female outside directors in SK Group’s listed companies was 23, accounting for 30.7% of all outside directors. They were followed by Samsung (16 people), Hyundai Motor (12 people), LG (12 people), Lotte (10 people), and Hanwha (10 people), each having more than 10 female outside directors.

Meanwhile, among the subjects of the survey, 39.4% (438 people) of outside directors will have their terms expire at next year’s shareholders’ meeting. Among them, four companies?Kyobo Life Insurance, JoongAng, Sampyo, and Bando Holdings?have all their outside directors’ terms ending at next year’s shareholders’ meeting.

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