40% of New Outside Directors in 30s Group Are Former Prosecutors, Judges, and Ex-Government Officials

Leaders Index Analyzes 71 Companies' General Meeting Resolutions
Most Appointees Are Former Prosecutors...19.5%

Among the new outside director candidates that the top 30 conglomerates plan to appoint through this year's regular shareholders' meetings, former government officials accounted for the largest proportion. About 40% of them were from the prosecution and judiciary.

Outside Director. Graphic by Seodongmin

On the 5th, Leaders Index, a corporate analysis research institute, analyzed the shareholder meeting convening resolutions of 71 companies that recommended new outside directors among 237 affiliates of the top 30 groups by sales as of the previous day. Among the 103 newly recommended outside directors, 39.8% (41 people) were former government officials.

Among them, those from the prosecution accounted for the largest share at 19.5% (8 people). Samsung C&T nominated Kim Kyung-soo, former Daegu High Prosecutor (lawyer at Yulchon LLC), and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance nominated Sung Young-hoon, former Chief Prosecutor and former Chairman of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (lawyer at Bae, Kim & Lee LLC), as outside director candidates.

Hyundai AutoEver recruited Lee Sun-wook, former Deputy Chief Prosecutor of Chuncheon District Prosecutors' Office (lawyer at Kim & Chang), Lotte Fine Chemical appointed Bong Wook, former Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office (lawyer at Kim & Chang), and HD Hyundai Energy Solutions brought in Yeo Hwan-seop, former Director of the Judicial Research and Training Institute (lawyer at Yeo Hwan-seop Law Office) as outside directors.

Hanwha Aerospace appointed Jeon Hyu-jae, former judge of the Seoul High Court (professor at Sungkyunkwan University School of Law), and Lotte Hi-Mart decided to appoint Hong Dae-sik, former judge of the Seoul District Court (professor at Sogang University School of Law) as outside directors. New outside director candidates from the judiciary accounted for 14.6% (6 people).

Those from the National Tax Service (5 people, 12.2%) were the third largest group. Kim Hee-chul, former head of the Seoul Regional National Tax Service (advisor at Kim & Chang), was nominated as a new outside director candidate for Hyundai AutoEver and Hyosung Advanced Materials, and Kim Young-gi, former director of the National Tax Service Investigation Bureau (CEO of T&P Tax Corporation), was recruited as an outside director of Shinsegae Food. In addition, there were 5 from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, 3 from the Financial Services Commission, and 2 each from the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

Among the new outside director candidates, women accounted for 15.8% (17 people), and among them, 35.5% (6 people) were former government officials, showing little difference from male outside directors. Among the total 103 new outside directors, 40.7% (42 people) were already serving as outside directors at other companies, and half of them (21 people) were former government officials.

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