KT CEO approved to be candidate for CEO job next year

KT CEO Ku Hyeon-mo [KT]

KT CEO Ku Hyeon-mo has been chosen as a candidate to run for the CEO job when it is open again next year.

Others will also be selected to run as institutional shareholders push for a change in the way corporate leadership is chosen and maintained.

According to KT, the board of directors received a recommendation regarding Ku from a committee charged with reviewing possible CEO candidates after Ku announced his wish to serve for another term. It presented his case to the board on Dec. 8.

Ku asked that the committee opens up the competition to other candidates “due to concerns raised by major shareholders regarding the company’s management structure.”

The committee will review more candidates, and the board of directors will decide on a final person to be voted by shareholders in a general meeting set for March next year.

The National Pension Service (NPS) CEO Kim Tae-hyun said in a recent press conference that companies that used to be state-owned and turned private need to be restructured for the good of the shareholders, pointing out that companies have become “fixed to the CEO and problems are arising when CEOs serve consecutive terms."

KT was founded in 1981 as a state-run telecommunications company and become a private company when the government sold all its shares in May 2002. The NPS owns 12.68 percent of KT,

Ku, who took office in March 2020, joined KT in 1987 as a researcher at the economics research center within the company. He has been leading the “Digico” campaign, where KT has been trying to reduce its dependence on the telecommunications businesses.

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]