Lee Kun-hee

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Lee Kun-hee : biography

January 9, 1942 –

Lee Kun-hee (born January 9, 1942) is a South Korean business magnate and chairman of Samsung Electronics. He resigned on April 21, 2008 owing to Samsung slush funds scandal, but returned on March 24, 2010. He speaks Korean, English, and Japanese. In 1996, Lee became a member of the International Olympic Committee. With an estimated net worth of $12.6 billion, he and his family rank among the Forbes richest people in the world. He is the third son of Samsung founder Lee Byung-chull.

An avid sportsman, he was instrumental in the successful third attempt to bring the 2018 Winter Olympics to Pyeongchang.

Quotes

  • "One genius can feed millions of others. For the upcoming era where creativity will be the most important driver of business success, we need to hire the best. The economic value of one genius is more than $1 billion."
  • "The business world has changed significantly. It is becoming increasingly difficult to foresee what sectors will prosper or opportunities will arise in the future. But if you hire the best and brightest, you will solve whatever issues arise in the future."
  • "It is difficult to understand the true dimensions of a problem or a situation when so many things seem to be happening on the surface. This is why I urge my employees to analyze a given situation from various perspectives. This way of thinking allows one to see the true aspects of a situation, which, in turn, allows one to respond wisely in conclusion."
  • "Firing a CEO because his financial performance was poor is simply a bad decision. I’ve encountered several situations where a CEO once performed poorly in one sector then went on to perform much better elsewhere. This is one of the reasons Japanese corporations were able to compete successfully against US corporations."

Samsung

Lee Kun-hee joined the Samsung Group in 1968 and took over the chairmanship on December 1, 1987, just two weeks after the death of his father and Samsung’s founder Lee Byung-chull. In the early 1990s, believing that Samsung Group was overly focused on producing massive quantities of low-quality goods and that it was not prepared to compete in quality, Lee famously said in 1993 "Change everything except your wife and kids" and true to his word attempted to reform the profoundly Korean culture that had pervaded Samsung until this point. Foreign employees were brought in and local employees were shipped out as Lee tried to foster a more international attitude to doing business.

Under Lee’s guidance, the company has been transformed from a Korean budget name into a major international force and arguably the most prominent Asian brand worldwide. One of the group’s subsidiaries, Samsung Electronics, is now one of the world’s leading developers and producers of semiconductors, and was listed in Fortune magazine’s list of the 100 largest corporations in the world in 2007. Today Samsung’s revenues are now 39 times what they were in 1987, it generates around 20 percent of South Korea’s GDP, and Lee is the country’s richest man.

On April 21, 2008, he officially resigned, and stated: "We, including myself, have caused troubles to the nation with the special probe; I deeply apologise for that, and I’ll take full responsibility for everything, both legally and morally." On December 29, 2009, the South Korean government moved to pardon Lee Kun-hee.

On March 24, 2010, he announced his return to Samsung Electronics as its chairman.

In an interview, Lee expressed pride in the fact that Samsung attracts the brightest minds in South Korea, but added that his new goal is to attract talent from all over the world to ensure that Samsung will remain one of the top companies in the world for years.

Notable Samsung industrial subsidiaries include Samsung Electronics (the world’s largest information technology company measured by 2011 revenues), Succession at Samsung – Crowning success Samsung Heavy Industries (the world’s second-largest shipbuilder measured by 2010 revenues), Samsung Engineering and Samsung C&T (respectively the world’s 35th- and 72nd-largest construction companies), and Samsung Techwin (a weapons technology and optoelectronics manufacturer). Other notable subsidiaries include Samsung Life Insurance (the world’s 14th-largest life insurance company), Samsung Everland (operator of Everland Resort, the oldest theme park in South Korea) and Cheil Worldwide (the world’s 19th-largest advertising agency measured by 2010 revenues).