Samsung promotes people in their 30s and 40s to execs, empowering the young generation

Samsung has recently had some quite big changes in the way it operates with the recent closing of its mobile division as a separate entity. Now, The Korea Herald reports that this is not the only thing the South Korea-based tech giant is looking to change: it is reportedly looking for young candidates for executive positions in the company, people in their 30s and 40s.

Samsung looking to promote young people to executive positions

A lot of young executives in their 30s and 40s have recently been promoted, and these promotions are a part of the ongoing effort to bring some fresh air and perspective to the company’s corporate culture. A total of 198 executives, including eight executive vice presidents that are in their 40s and four vice presidents in their 30s were now promoted. The company has stated that these promotions were made in line with the culture Samsung has that is strongly performance-driven. The tech giant also cited the company’s record sales in 2021, which were reached despite uncertainties with the global supply chain and chip shortages caused by the ongoing global health pandemic.

The company also recently simplified its executive system that previously had two vice presidents and executive vice president positions. Currently, it seems there are more than 100 executive vice presidents right now, who are potential candidates for CEO positions within the company.

Additionally, young engineers and young software developers who have extensive knowledge of complicated and futuristic technologies such as AI, voice recognition technologies, and advanced chipsets were promoted to leadership positions within the company.

Now, let’s look more into detail at what we are talking about. Currently, among the line of new executive vice presidents, the youngest is 45-year-old Kim Chan-woo, head of Samsung Research’s speech processing lab. Previously, the youngest person to ever get this position was 51 years of age.

On the other hand, 37-year old Park Sung-beom is now the youngest-ever person to be an executive at the company, and he was previously a mobile processor design specialist. His new role is Vice president in recognition, and it is a key role in the partnership between Samsung and US-based chipmaker AMD.

On top of that, Samsung has also focused efforts on adding diversity and inclusion to its company hierarchy. 12 women and five people from foreign countries were promoted to executive positions. This number is the highest number in five years.

51-year-old Jade Buckley, who previously worked at Best Buy and Microsoft and has joined the South Korea-based tech giant back in 2019 was promoted to senior vice president, and his efforts in elevating Samsung’s market share in the United States smartphone market were recognized.

52-year-old Yang Hye-soon is one of the new female executives, and she is taking the role of senior vice president over at the consumer business unit.

On top of this end-of-year reshuffle, Samsung stated it will continue to nurture and give chances to young executives in an effort to change its corporate culture for the better. This is a part of the “New Samsung” vision of the current Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, who is the leader of the group.

Samsung: innovative and stereotype-breaking

Recently, we reported on the fact that Samsung is the world’s most innovative tech company, according to a new Capital on Tap report. The company has now registered a whopping 13,024 patents just for this year, taking first place by a good margin, with the second place taken by Huawei with 0.739 new patent applications.

With the new staff changes, Samsung seems to break the stereotype of the corporate culture in South Korea, where age hierarchy is quite important and executive positions are almost never given to younger people. Innovative, stereotype-breaking, this is Samsung for you.