Lee Jae-yong finally named Samsung Electronics president
Seoul, Oct 27 (EFE).- The heir to the Samsung empire and its until now de facto leader Lee Jae-yong was finally appointed president of Samsung Electronics, the main company of the conglomerate, the company said in a Thursday statement.
“The Board of Directors of Samsung Electronics today approved the appointment of Jay Y. Lee (Westernized name used by Lee) as CEO of the company,” the brief text sent by the South Korean technology giant read.
His appointment comes two years after the death of his father, Lee Kun-hee, the figure who took Samsung Electronics from a prominent local consumer electronics company to the world’s largest phone and memory chip maker in just two decades.
Lee Jae-yong started working at Samsung Electronics in 1991 and was promoted to vice president in 2012, although he took over as de facto leader in 2014, when his father suffered a heart attack that left him disabled until his death six years later.
Lee was also pardoned by the government in August 2021 after spending more than a year and a half in prison for his role in the corruption plot of the so-called South Korean “Rasputin.” It involved conservative executive of former President Park Geun-hye who wove a vast client network with the leaders of the main “chaebol” business conglomerates under family control in the country.
Lee’s release came at a key time for future capital investments by the company, which aims to improve its market share in a key market, that of advanced integrated circuits.
“The (management) board cited the current uncertain global business environment and the pressing need for greater accountability and business stability in approving the recommendation (of Lee’s appointment),” the text bySamsung read.
The company presented financial results for the third quarter Thursday, a period in which the company saw its net profit decrease by 23.5 percent year-on-year to 9.39 trillion won (about $ 6.6 billion) due to the cyclical slowdown that the semiconductor sector has been suffering worldwide in a context marked by inflation, the rise in interest rates or the war in Ukraine. EFE
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