Samsung finds new talent from overseas

Samsung Electronics focused overseas in a recent recruitment drive to find leaders for the electronics giant’s new businesses, the company announced Sunday.

The new additions will work on developing the company’s futuristic technologies and will also strengthen sales and marketing abroad.

Prof. Wei Gu-yeon - who has been teaching electrical engineering and computer science at Harvard University since 2002 - has been appointed as a Fellow to bolster the company’s capacity in artificial intelligence (AI). Fellow is a title established at Samsung in 2002 to honor outstanding achievements in research.

He will develop the Neural Processing Unit at Samsung Research.

Samsung also appointed Jang Woo-seung as an executive director to direct big data development.

Jang served as a senior principal research scientist at Amazon.com until March.

To expand its market overseas, Samsung appointed digital marketing expert William Kim as vice president of retail and e-commerce in the wireless division. He is the former CEO of the fashion brand AllSaints.

Min Jae. S was appointed to develop product and user interface design. He served as chief designer at Volkswagen’s U.S. design center.

Samsung also brought in some new executives to strengthen sales and marketing at its foreign branches.

James Fishler will serve as senior vice president directing product sales and marketing in the U.S. corporate body, while Benjamin Braun will serve as vice president in a similar role in Britain.

Not all new hires were from overseas. Samsung appointed Kang Sung-chul from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology as an executive director to strengthen the company’s development of robotic technologies.

BY JIN MIN-JI [jin.minji@joongang.co.kr]