Samsung Elec puts meritocracy over seniority in annual reshuffle

Samsung Electronics has finalized its annual executive shakeup, showing its growing focus on young and high-performing talent.

The world’s largest chip and smartphone maker on Tuesday announced the promotion of 162 senior executives and employees, including 14 executive vice presidents. The reshuffle size was similar to the previous year’s 158.

“We appointed a number of young leaders that delivered strong performance and showed high growth potential to executive vice president positions, expanding the pool of future chief executives,” the company said.

Samsung Electronics promoted 24 senior executives this year regardless of seniority, showing its growing commitment to meritocracy. The number of such performance-based promotions was 18 in 2018 and 13 in 2017.

The company added eight foreign and female executives this year, compared with 11 in 2018 and 14 in 2017.

The announcement comes a day after Samsung’s executive reshuffle of its main business units. Roh Tae-moon was tapped to lead the mobile business while Jeon Kyung-hoon was named the new network head. Roh, 51, previously served as president and head of research and development at Samsung’s mobile division and was credited with leading the development of Galaxy mobile devices.

Koh Dong-jin, president and chief executive officer of the IT & Mobile Communications (IM) division, which oversees both mobile devices and network equipment, retained only his CEO title.

Kim Ki-nam, head of the device solutions unit, which oversees the memory chip business, and Kim Hyun-suk, head of the consumer electronics unit, retained their posts.

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