Lee Jae-keun has been selected as the next chairman nominee of KB Financial Group, the South Korean banking group said on September 11. Lee, who heads the group's global business division, is expected to be formally appointed at an extraordinary shareholders' meeting on November 20, with a three-year term beginning November 21.
Seoul Economic Daily and Yonhap independently reported the committee's decision. The selection was a surprise because incumbent chairman Yang Jong-hee had been widely expected to win a second term. The committee narrowed the field to Lee, Yang and former Woori Bank president Kwon Kwang-seok before choosing Lee after a second round of interviews on management vision and business plans.
A generational handoff
Lee, 60, brings experience across KB Financial's global, wealth-management and small-and-medium enterprise businesses. Yonhap said the committee viewed his background as useful for expanding the group's non-banking portfolio, including insurance and brokerage, and said it chose him to strengthen core competitiveness and secure future growth momentum.
The timetable still leaves a formal step ahead: the nomination will go to the board on October 2 and then to shareholders in November. For KB Financial, the interesting part is not only that the chair will change, but that the committee used the succession process to choose a leader from the group's operating ranks rather than simply extend the incumbent's tenure.
