SKC

SKC Announces Regular Executive Personnel Changes for 2022
2021-12-02


  • The
    BOD appointed Woncheol Park, new business team leader of SK Supex Council, new
    CEO and president, a sign that SKC will accelerate Deep Change.

  • With
    his experience working with a global consulting firm and his edges in global
    growth and new business, CEO Park has played a leading role in SK Group’s global
    investment decisions.





 



The SKC Board of Directors
held an extraordinary board meeting on December 1st and appointed
Woncheol Park, the new business team leader (Vice President) of the SK Supex
Council, the new CEO and president. The current CEO Lee Wan-jae, who has led
SKC's remarkable changes since taking office in 2016, will support SKC's
management of ESG and new business promotion with his management expertise
accumulated over the years.



 



CEO Woncheol Park, who received a Ph.D at the Department of Chemical Engineering at
Seoul National University and completed an MBA at the University of Chicago, is
a new business expert who has been in charge of global growth and new business at
the SK Supex Council since 2018 after working with global consulting firm BCG
(Boston Consulting Group), GS Energy, and Hana Asset Management. He has led SK
Group's global investments in Masan Group and Vingroup in Vietnam and TBM, a
Japanese eco-friendly material company, among others.



 



SKC’s board
decided that Woncheol Park was the right person to accelerate SKC's growth
through a deep change. SKC has been pushing for a deep change at the level of
_ meta_morphosis since it declared Taljeong, meaning ‘getting out of the well’ in
Korean, in 2017. In 2020, SKC launched SK nexilis to embark on the rechargeable
battery materials business and sped up innovation by reorganizing its stakes in
SKC Kolon PI and SK bioland.



 



SKC's performance
has improved significantly over the years. Its operating profit surged from KRW
149.3 billion in 2016 to KRW 365.2 billion in 2021 until the end of the third
quarter, more than 2.5 times higher than the total annual operating profit in
2016. In the third quarter of this year, SKC earned KRW 145.8 billion in operating
profit, a quarterly record ever. Considering 4Q earnings, the 2021 operating
profit is expected to more than triple over 2016. External _ eval_uations have
also changed. As of November, SKC's stock price stood at the KRW 200,000 rang,
more than six times higher than in January 2016.



 



SKC does not stop
there. It is promoting the 2nd deep change. At the ‘SKC Investor Day’ event
held in September, SKC presented ‘Financial Story,’ a future growth strategy,
promising a new leap forward.  Financial
Story calls for an active expansion of the company’s production capacity of
copper foil, a core material for rechargeable batteries, to 250,000 tons per
year by 2025, so that SKC can leap to become the overwhelming No. 1 p_ layer_,
while driving the company to make inroads into the next-generation material
business such as silicon anode materials and glass substrates for
high-performance computing.



 



Since then, SKC
has been announcing investment plans one after another and implementing Financial
Story as planned: In October, SKC decided to invest in glass substrates for
high-performance computing, and in November, it announced its plan to invest in
silicon anode materials and expand its Polish copper foil plant. SKC has
secured a significant portion of the necessary funds for the investments by
signing a KRW 1.5 trillion financial cooperation agreement with Korea
Development Bank.



 



Meanwhile, SKC
announced the appointment of new chief executives for its subsidiaries so they
can take a bigger leap forward: SK nexilis will be led by CEO Lee Jae-hong, who
is currently management support team director, whereas Kim Jong-woo, the head
of SKC's BM Innovation Promotion Team, will be inaugurated as SKC solmics’ new
CEO. Oh Jun-rok, CEO of SKC solmics, will take office as CEO of SKC, Absolics
Inc. which promotes the glass substrate business.



 



"After
pushing for ‘Getting Out of The Well (Taljeong)’ over the years, SKC promised
on Investor Day in September that it would rise to become the global No. 1 mobility
materials company,” said an SKC official. “The new president Woncheol Park and
SKC members will not only achieve the promised goals but also emerge as a
company that changes the world with sustainable values through its enhanced ESG
management.”



 



[SKC’s 2022
Executive Personnel Changes]



CEO



▲ Woncheol Park, president & CEO of SKC




[Profile of SKC’s New CEO]



Name



Education



Major Career
























Woncheol Park 


(born in 1967)




· Chemical Engineering, SNU (BS)


· Chemical Engineering, SNU (MS)


· Chemical Engineering, SNU (D.Sc)


· Univ. of Chicago MBA



· Leader of New Business Team, SK Supex Council


· Director of Global Growth Support
Team/


Strategy Support Team, SK Supex Council


· Head of Energy Infrastructure
Investment Division,


Hana Asset Management


· Head of Energy/Support Business H/Q,
GS Energy


· Executive of G&G Promotion Team, SK
Co., Ltd.


· MD of New Renewable Energy Business
H/Q, OCI


· Boston Consulting Group








 













Subsidiaries’ CEOs



▲ Lee
Jae-hong, CEO of SK nexilis



▲ Kim
Jong-woo, CEO of SKC solmics



▲ Oh
Jun-rok, CEO of Absolics



 



New
executives



▲ Park
Ho-joong, general manager of SKC Jincheon Plant



▲ Lee
Dong-hoon, head of Management Support Division, SKC solmics