Lee Kun-hee (Hangul: 이건희; Hanja: 李健熙; Korean pronunciation: [iːɡʌnhi]; born January 9, 1942) is a South Korean business magnate and the chairman of Samsung Group. He resigned in April 2008, owing to a Samsung slush funds scandal, but returned on March 24, 2010. In 1996, Lee became a member of the International Olympic Committee. With an estimated net worth of $12.6 billion, he and his family rank among the Forbes richest people in the world. He is the third son of Samsung founder Lee Byung-chul.
In 2014, Lee was named the world’s 35th most powerful person and the most powerful Korean by Forbes Magazine’s List of The World’s Most Powerful People along with his son Lee Jae-yong. In May 2014, he was hospitalized for a heart attack.
Early life
Young Lee Lee Kun-hee with his father Lee Byung-chul
Lee Kun-hee was born on 9 January 1942 in Uiryeong, South Gyeongsang, South Korea. He is the third son of Lee Byung-chul, the founder of the Samsung group.
Samsung
Lee joined the Samsung Group in 1968 and took over the chairmanship on December 1, 1987, just two weeks after the death of his father, Lee Byung-chul, who founded Samsung. In the early 1990s, believing that Samsung Group was overly focused on producing massive quantities of low-quality goods and that it was not prepared to compete in quality, Lee famously said in 1993 “Change everything except your wife and kids” and true to his word attempted to reform the profoundly Korean culture that had pervaded Samsung until this point. Foreign employees were brought in and local employees were shipped out as Lee tried to foster a more international attitude to doing business.
Under Lee’s guidance, the company has been transformed from a Korean budget name into a major international force and arguably the most prominent Asian brand worldwide. One of the group’s subsidiaries, Samsung Electronics, is now one of the world’s leading developers and producers of semiconductors, and was listed in Fortune magazine’s list of the 100 largest corporations in the world in 2007. Today Samsung’s revenues are now 39 times what they were in 1987, it generates around 20 percent of South Korea’s GDP, and Lee is the country’s richest man.
On April 21, 2008, he resigned and stated: “We, including myself, have caused troubles to the nation with the special probe; I deeply apologize for that, and I’ll take full responsibility for everything, both legally and morally.” On December 29, 2009, the South Korean government moved to pardon Lee Kun-hee.
On March 24, 2010, he announced his return to Samsung Electronics as its chairman.
In an interview, Lee expressed pride in the fact that Samsung attracts the brightest minds in South Korea but added that his new goal is to attract talent from all over the world to ensure that Samsung will remain one of the top companies in the world for years.
Notable Samsung industrial subsidiaries include Samsung Electronics (the world’s largest information technology company measured by 2011 revenues), Samsung Heavy Industries (the world’s second-largest shipbuilder measured by 2010 revenues), Samsung Engineering and Samsung C&T (respectively the world’s 35th- and 72nd-largest construction companies), Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co. Ltd. (Established in 1973, Samsung Electro-Mechanics has become a remarkable developer and manufacturer of key electronic components not only in Korea but also in other parts of the world) and Samsung Techwin (a weapons technology and optoelectronics manufacturer). Other notable subsidiaries include Samsung Life Insurance (the world’s 14th-largest life insurance company), Samsung Everland (operator of Everland Resort, the oldest theme park in South Korea) and Cheil Worldwide (the world’s 19th-largest advertising agency measured by 2010 revenues).
Samsung produces around a fifth of South Korea’s total exports and its revenues are larger than many countries’ GDP; in 2006, it would have been the world’s 35th-largest economy. The company has a powerful influence on South Korea’s economic development, politics, media and culture and has been a major driving force behind the “Miracle on the Han River”.
Lee Kun Hee is the chairman of Samsung Electronics, the largest information technology company in the world. The third son of Samsung founder, Lee Byung-Chul, Lee Kun Hee is generally cited as the driving force behind the reinvention of the Samsung brand as a high-end, high-quality electronics manufacturer. He has risen to his place on the List of Billionaires through his Samsung success and is now the richest man in South Korea.
Often quoted on the subject of successful business practices, during the restructuring of Samsung in the 1990s, he famously said, “Change everything except for your wife and kids.”
He is generally felt to be responsible for Samsung’s international popularity. The company itself is often cited as a driving force behind the sudden rise of South Korea’s economy, known as “The Miracle on the Han River.” Through the Samsung Group’s numerous divisions, including shipbuilding, engineering, construction and even insurance and theme parks, Samsung’s annual revenue is equal to almost one-fifth of the total gross domestic product of South Korea.
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