Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee died today at the age of 78, the South Korean company announced, but did not disclose the cause of death. The man who made the manufacturer of cheap televisions one of the most valuable companies in the world, but also had "tangles" with the law, is gone forever, who will replace him?
Lee Kun-hee took over Samsung after the death of his father (who founded the company) Lee Byung-chul in 1987. At the time, people only thought of Samsung as a manufacturer of cheap televisions and unreliable microwaves sold in discount stores. However, Lee managed to change that very soon, and already in the early 90s, the South Korean company surpassed its Japanese and American competitors and became a major player in the field of memory chips. Later, the conglomerate also managed to become the number one market for displays and mobile phones of the middle and high end. Today, the Samsung group accounts for a full one-fifth of South Korea's GDP and pays for a leading corporation involved in science and research.
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Samsung Group was headed by Lee Kun-hee in 1987-2008 and 2010-2020. In 1996, he was accused and found guilty of bribing the then president of South Korea, Roh Tae-woo, but was pardoned. Another charge came in 2008, this time for tax evasion and embezzlement, to which Lee Kun-hee eventually pleaded guilty and resigned from the head of the conglomerate, but the following year he was pardoned again so that he could remain at the International Olympic Committee and take care of it , for the 2018 Olympic Games to be held in Pyongyang. Lee Kun-hee was the richest citizen of South Korea since 2007, his fortune is estimated at 21 billion US dollars (approx. 481 billion Czech crowns). In 2014, Frobes named him the 35th most powerful person on the planet and the most powerful person in Korea, but in the same year he suffered a heart attack, the consequences of which he is said to be struggling with to this day. The incident also forced him to withdraw from the public eye, and the Samsung group was effectively run by the current vice-chairman and Lee's son – Lee Jae-yong. In theory, he should have succeeded his father as head of the conglomerate, but he too had problems with the law. Unfortunately, he played a role in a corruption scandal and spent almost a year in prison.
Who will lead Samsung now? Will there be major changes in management? Where will the technology giant go next? Only time will tell. However, one thing is clear, the lucrative position of "director" of Samsung will not be missed by anyone and there will be a "battle" for it.
Source: The Verge, The New York Times
