Samsung Electronics names its first woman president

Samsung Electronics said on Monday that it will retain the positions of its current two CEOs going forward.

CEOs JH Han and Kyung Kye-hyun will each continue to head the Device Experience and Device Solution divisions, respectively, the company said in its year’s end reshuffle announcement.

Samsung said it was maintaining their posts considering the current “harsh business reality”.

The tech giant is seeing its earnings drop from the lowered demand for memory chips and consumer electronics, which were at all-time highs during the pandemic.

Samsung experienced its first annual profit drop in three years during the third quarter and analysts expect the company to post similar results in the fourth quarter.

Also, fundamentally, its traditionally strong businesses such as mobile and TV are seeing growth slowdown in general. At the same time, its logic businesses, Samsung Foundry and Samsung System LSI, which the company deems its next growth engines, have shown mixed performances in the past couple of years.

Meanwhile, Samsung also announced its first woman president. President is the highest executive position within the electronic maker only behind CEO and vice chairman.

President Younghee Lee was named the global market officer of the Device Experience division, or DX division. Known as a marketing expert and having previously worked at L’Oreal, she joined Samsung in 2007.

She was instrumental in promoting Samsung’s Galaxy smartphone brand when the company’s mobile business was fast-rising in the smartphone sector starting in the early 2010s under the leadership of then-CEO JK Shin.