By Kim Yoon-kyoung & Kim Tae-gyu, UPI News Korea
Samsung Electronics’ Lee Young-hee (L) became the first woman to hold the job of president at Samsung Group units who is not related to the owner family. KB Securities CEO Park Jeong-rim (R) is the first female CEO at the country’s brokerage industry.
Photo courtesy of Samsung Electronics, KB Securities
SEOUL, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- South Korea is notorious for its glass ceiling, ranked worst among the OECD countries, but the country's top conglomerates are on a path to changing things.
Late last month, cosmetics leader LG Household & Health Care tapped Lee Jung-ae as its CEO, the first woman to lead an affiliate of the LG Group, South Korea's No. 4 conglomerate.
SK Group, Korea's second-largest conglomerate, followed suit this month by appointing Ahn Jung-eun as its CEO of online retailer 11th Street, also becoming the first female chief of any kind in the history of the group.
Samsung Group, worldwide leader in electronics and the largest business entity in Korea, named its first woman, Lee Young-hee, who had held the title of vice president of global marketing in the Device eXperience division of Samsung Electronics, to the position of president this month.
SEOUL, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- South Korea is notorious for its glass ceiling, ranked worst among the OECD countries, but the country's top conglomerates are on a path to changing things.
Late last month, cosmetics leader LG Household & Health Care tapped Lee Jung-ae as its CEO, the first woman to lead an affiliate of the LG Group, South Korea's No. 4 conglomerate.
SK Group, Korea's second-largest conglomerate, followed suit this month by appointing Ahn Jung-eun as its CEO of online retailer 11th Street, also becoming the first female chief of any kind in the history of the group.
Samsung Group, worldwide leader in electronics and the largest business entity in Korea, named its first woman, Lee Young-hee, who had held the title of vice president of global marketing in the Device eXperience division of Samsung Electronics, to the position of president this month.
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Since its founding in 1938, with exceptions for owner family members, Samsung had never promoted any females to the title of president.
"According to the glass-ceiling index measured by a U.K. media outlet, South Korea ranked the lowest among OECD member nations duringt he past decade," Seoul-based consultancy Leaders Index head ParkJu-gun told UPI News Korea.
"However, there are signs that things are changing as demonstrated by the measures taken by the leading conglomerates recently. We still have a long way to go, though," he said.
Experts point out that the next step toward cracking the glass ceiling must involve the country's top financial institutions, namely the country's big four -- KB, Shinhan, Woori and Hana bank.
KB Securities CEO Park Jeong-rim is regarded as the most likely to first achieve this breakthrough. In 2019, she became the first woman CEO of a brokerage firm. She was also charged with senior roles at KB Bank, the sister company to KB Securities.
"The banking industry has been a male-dominated business in South Korea. In other words, the glass ceiling has been the highest there," KimSang-kyung, chairwoman of the Korea Network of Women in Finance, an association of high-ranking women in banking, said in a phone interview.
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"A female CEO taking charge of one of the big banks here will do a whole lot for smashing the glass ceiling," she said.
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