이 기사는 2022년 01월 13일 08시07분 thebell에 표출된 기사입니다

Samsung Electronics’ board is set to be refreshed with a new chair as the term of the current board chair, Bahk Jae-wan, will expire in March.

Bahk, a former bureaucrat and economic expert, joined the South Korean tech firm’s board as an outside director in March 2016 for a three-year term and was re-elected in 2019. His second and last term will end on March 10.

In February 2020, Bahk became the company’s first board chair appointed from outside directors. He has an extensive bureaucratic background, having served as Minister of Economy and Finance and Minister of Employment and Labor in the Lee Myung-bak's administration.

The appointment was seen as a symbolic step by the company and the broader Samsung Group, which had been stepping up efforts to overhaul its governance in response to public criticism over its link to a massive influence-peddling scandal that brought down the Park Geun-hye’s administration in 2017.

It is likely that a new board chair will also be elected from the company’s outside directors, especially considering Samsung Group vice chairman Lee Jae-yong’s push for “New Samsung”.

Potential candidates for Bahk’s successor include Kim Sun-uk and Jeong Kim. They have served on the board as outside directors for the longest period after Bahk.

Kim Sun-uk is one of the two female directors in the company’s 11-member board. Born in 1952, she was named as the first female head of the country's legislative office in the Roh Moo-hyun’s administration and served as president of Ewha Womans University for four years from 2010 to 2014.

A tech entrepreneur, Jeong Kim is chairman of US streaming service startup Kiswe Mobile. Born in 1960, he founded Yurie Systems in 1992 which was sold a mere six years later for more than $1 billion. He was one of the Park Geun-hye’s administration’s nominees for the science minister.

Kim Han-jo, who joined the company’s board in 2019, is also considered a likely candidate for the chair role. He is a financial expert having served as president and chief executive officer of KEB Hana Bank and vice chairman of Hana Financial Group. He is currently serving as chairman of Hana Foundation.

Meanwhile, changes are also expected in the composition of the company’s inside directors after Samsung Electronics named two new co-chief executives, Han Jong-hee and Kyung Gye-hyeon, to lead its visual display and device solutions businesses respectively as part of a major organizational restructuring in December.

Han has been serving on the board since March 2020, while Kyung is expected to join the board this year. (Reporting by Hye-ran Kim)