New 1st and 2nd Deputy Directors of the National Intelligence Service

President Yoon Suk-yeol dismissed Kim Gyu-hyun, the Director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), and replaced Deputy Director 1 Kwon Chun-taek (in charge of overseas affairs) and Deputy Director 2 Kim Su-yeon (in charge of North Korea) with Hong Jang-won and Hwang Won-jin as special advisors to the NIS Director, respectively.

Until a successor for the NIS Director is appointed, the new Deputy Director 1, Hong Jang-won, will serve as acting director. Hong is a terrorism operations expert who graduated from the 43rd class of the Korea Military Academy and served as a company commander of the 707 Special Mission Battalion of the Special Forces during his captaincy. It is known that he transferred to the NIS during his junior officer years. He holds a master's degree in International Relations from Boston University in the United States and a master's degree in War Studies from the University of London in the United Kingdom. He has served as a British attach?, chief secretary to the NIS Director, and special advisor on North Korea to the NIS Director.

While serving as a British attach?, he excelled in collecting overseas intelligence and working in covert operations departments. The new Deputy Director 1, Hong, will oversee counterintelligence, counterterrorism, as well as international intelligence collection, analysis, and external intelligence cooperation.

The new Deputy Director 2, Hwang Won-jin, graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in Chinese Literature and earned a master's degree in International Relations from Korea University. Within the NIS, he was known as a North Korea expert, having led North Korea-related departments for over 30 years since 2017.

After retiring from the NIS, he worked as a professor in the Department of International Relations at Changwon University. He later served as a special advisor on North Korea to the NIS Director and became well-known as a top lecturer on North Korean nuclear issues. As Deputy Director 2 of the NIS, he will oversee counterintelligence operations as well as intelligence activities related to North Korea, including intelligence collection and analysis.

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