Major Group CEOs Live in Gangnam

They are in their 50s, were born in Seoul, and graduated from Kyunggi High School and Seoul National University. They majored in business administration and have been working in marketing or sales of the nation’s conglomerates for more than 30 years.

They dwell in Seoul’s affluent Gangnam district.

These are the traits shared by the CEOs leading Korea’s 10 major groups.

The Dong-A Ilbo reporters of the industry division surveyed 158 CEOs of 10 Korean major private groups (including privatized state-owned enterprises) – Samsung, Hyundai-Kia Automotive, SK, LG, Lotte, POSCO, KT, GS, Kumho-Asiana and Hanjin – based on the market capitalization on Sunday.

Their total market capitalization stands at 478.7 trillion won as of April 2007 and they have 380 affiliated companies. The CEOs leading them are regarded as “power elites in business circles” who influence the Korean economy greatly.

Among them, 13 people went to Kyunggi High School (8.2 percent), followed by Gwangju Jeil High School (6.3 percent), Gyeongnam High School (5.1 percent), Gyeongbok(5.1 percent) and Joongang High School (4.4 percent).

By undergrad, 48 of them graduated from Seoul National University (30.4 percent), followed by Korea University (12 percent), Yonsei University (10.1 percent), Sungkyunkwan University (7 percent) and Hanyang University (6.3 percent).

By major, economics and business-related majors were most popular (44.3 percent), followed by engineering (29.7 percent), social sciences including politics and public administration (8.2 percent), humanities (4.4 percent), natural sciences (3.8 percent) and law (3.8 percent).

Those in their 50s accounted for 51.9 percent and those in their 60s made up for 41.2 percent. Those in their 40s and 30s were only 4.4 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively.

About 30 percent of them were born in Seoul (29.1 percent), followed by South Gyeongsang Province (14.6 percent), North Gyeongsang Province (13.3 percent), South Jeolla Province (8.9 percent), Gyeonggi Province (5.1 percent), Daegu (4.4 percent) and Busan (3.8 percent).

The main expertise in their careers was in the order of marketing and sales (20.9 percent), management (17.1 percent), planning (17.1 percent), finance (15.2 percent), R&D (12 percent) and production (10.8 percent).

About 60 percent of them worked at their current workplace for close to 40 years, while 18.4 percent worked for less than 30 years and 10.8 percent worked for less than 20 years. On average, they worked for 27 years.

Most of them live in three major affluent areas in Seoul, including Gangnam-gu (26.6 percent), Seocho-gu (12 percent) and Songpa-gu (9.5 percent), and the rest live in Yongsan-gu (6.3 percent) and Seongnam in Gyeonggi Province (6.3 percent).

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