March 2010 April 2010 May 2010 June 2010 July 2010
August 2010
September 2010 October 2010
November 2010
December 2010
January 2011
February 2011 March 2011 April 2011 May 2011 June 2011 July 2011 August 2011 September 2011 October 2011 November 2011 December 2011 January 2012 February 2012 March 2012 April 2012 May 2012 June 2012 July 2012 August 2012 September 2012 October 2012 November 2012 December 2012 January 2013 February 2013 March 2013 April 2013 May 2013 June 2013 July 2013 August 2013 September 2013 October 2013 November 2013 December 2013 January 2014 February 2014 March 2014 April 2014 May 2014 June 2014 July 2014 August 2014 September 2014 October 2014 November 2014 December 2014 January 2015 February 2015 March 2015 April 2015 May 2015 June 2015 July 2015 August 2015 September 2015 October 2015 November 2015 December 2015 January 2016 February 2016 March 2016 April 2016 May 2016 June 2016 July 2016 August 2016 September 2016 October 2016 November 2016 December 2016 January 2017 February 2017 March 2017 April 2017 May 2017 June 2017 July 2017 August 2017 September 2017 October 2017 November 2017 December 2017 January 2018 February 2018 March 2018 April 2018 May 2018 June 2018 July 2018 August 2018 September 2018 October 2018 November 2018 December 2018 January 2019 February 2019 March 2019 April 2019 May 2019 June 2019 July 2019 August 2019 September 2019 October 2019 November 2019 December 2019 January 2020 February 2020 March 2020 April 2020 May 2020 June 2020 July 2020 August 2020 September 2020 October 2020 November 2020 December 2020 January 2021 February 2021 March 2021 April 2021 May 2021 June 2021 July 2021 August 2021 September 2021 October 2021 November 2021 December 2021 January 2022 February 2022 March 2022 April 2022 May 2022 June 2022 July 2022 August 2022 September 2022 October 2022 November 2022 December 2022 January 2023 February 2023 March 2023 April 2023 May 2023 June 2023 July 2023 August 2023 September 2023 October 2023 November 2023 December 2023 January 2024 February 2024 March 2024
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30
31
News Every Day |

Samsung’s Lee: tainted titan who built a global tech giant

October 25, 2020

By Miyoung Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – In February 1993, five years after taking over from his father at South Korea’s Samsung Group, 51-year-old Lee Kun-hee was frustrated that he wasn’t making his mark.

He summoned a group of Samsung Electronics executives to a Best Buy store in Los Angeles for a reality check on the Samsung brand. Covered in dust, a Samsung TV set sat on a corner shelf with a price tag nearly $100 cheaper than a rival Sony Corp model.

After a tense nine-hour follow-up meeting, Lee kick-started a strategic shift at Samsung – to gain market share through quality, not quantity.

Lee, who died aged 78 on Sunday after being hospitalised for a heart attack in 2014, was driven by a constant sense of crisis, which he instilled in his leadership teams to drive change and fight complacency. In the mid-1990s, Lee personally recalled around $50 million worth of poor quality mobile phones and fax machines, and set fire to them.

This focus on crisis, and his often abrasive manner, helped Lee grow his father Lee Byung-chull’s noodle trading business into a sprawling business empire with assets worth 424 trillion won ($375 billion) as of May 2020 in dozens of affiliates stretching from electronics and insurance to shipbuilding and construction.

Samsung Electronics developed from a second-tier TV maker to the world’s biggest technology firm by revenue – seeing off Japanese brands Sony, Sharp Corp and Panasonic Corp in chips, TVs and displays; ending Nokia Oyj’s handset supremacy and beating Apple Inc in smartphones.

In a 1997 essay, Lee recalled his frustration at management inertia. “The external business environment was not good … but there was no sense of anxiety within the organization, and everyone appeared to be eaten up with self-conceit … I needed to tighten them up a bit and repeatedly reminded managers of the need to have the sense of crisis.”

In 2013, Forbes named Lee as the second most powerful South Korean, ranked only behind United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

FEARED AND REVERED

Four months after the Los Angeles meeting, Lee called his lieutenants to a Frankfurt hotel conference room, where he laid out his “New Management” plan, exhorting executives to “change everything except your wife and children.”

Executive meetings proved brutal, often stretching to 10 hours, with participants afraid to even drink water as they didn’t want to have to interrupt Lee’s flow by visiting the washroom.

Lee’s business acumen made him the object of endless fascination and speculation in Korea, but he and the empire he built have also been vilified by critics and activist shareholders for wielding such economic clout, hierarchical and opaque governance, and dubious transfers of the family wealth.

In 2008, Lee was accused of managing a political slush fund and of helping his children buy Samsung company shares on the cheap. Prosecutors failed to prove either charge, but Lee was convicted of tax evasion and embezzlement. He apologized and stepped down, only to return within two years following a presidential pardon.

He had since kept a lower profile and delegated to an army of managers, while promoting his son, Jay Y. Lee, to vice chairman, a grooming post for the eventual transfer of power.

As his health deteriorated – Lee needed help in walking and was susceptible to respiratory diseases following lung cancer treatment – he was a less frequent presence at Samsung’s headquarters, spending long winter vacations in Japan or Hawaii.

But his hold over the group remained undimmed. Whenever he travelled overseas, at least four of Samsung’s top executives, along with company crew and security, would be at the airport to see him off.

At Samsung’s human resources development center, the tens of thousands of employees attending training sessions pay a silent vigil to a mock-up of the drab Frankfurt hotel conference room – with furniture specially imported from Germany. As most of Samsung’s staff are in their 20s and 30s and didn’t experience Lee’s managerial heyday first-hand, this homage serves to remind them of the need to ‘think crisis,” several people who have been trained at the center said.

JAPAN EXPOSURE

Lee was born in 1942 in the southern Korean village of Uiryeong, the third son of Samsung’s founder. He was sent to Japan at the age of 11, just after the Korean war ended. His father wanted his sons to learn how Japan was rebuilding from the ashes of World War Two.

He has admitted to being a loner and found it tough to make friends when he returned home to a country riven with anti-Japanese sentiment. He went back to Japan to study economics at Waseda University, and then business management at George Washington University in the United States.

His early exposure to Japan’s advanced technology led him to establish the basis of Samsung Electronics by forming alliances with the likes of Sanyo, and adopting chip making and TV manufacturing technologies.

Lee began his Samsung career in broadcasting, working his way up to group chairman by 1987, breaking with the traditional Confucian practice of the eldest son taking over the reins. His older brother, Lee Maeng-hee, was initially chosen to lead Samsung in 1967 when his father retired, but his aggressive management style caused friction with the founder’s confidants, according to several books about Samsung.

The second son, Lee Chang-hee, severed family ties by telling the presidential office that his father had a $1 million slush fund overseas.

Lee senior exiled Chang-hee to the United States and returned as chairman himself. In 1976, diagnosed with cancer, he handed the business down to Kun-hee. Chang-hee died in 1991.

Kun-hee’s hunched posture, due to a traffic accident, soft voice, round eyes and often bemused expression were atypical for such a powerful character. Married to Hong Ra-hee, who runs a Samsung-affiliated art gallery called the Leeum – a combination of Lee and museum – Lee had a son and three daughters.

His youngest daughter died in New York in 2005, which Samsung said at a car accident but media reports said was a suicide.

Lee had been a member of the International Olympic Committee between 1996 and 2017.

($1 = 1,127.9500 won)

(Reporting by Miyoung Kim; additional reporting by Se Young Lee and Joyce Lee; Editing by Ian Geoghegan and William Mallard)

Москва

Эксперт Президентской академии в Санкт-Петербурге об открытии завода по производству экологичной полимерной продукции

I was diagnosed with cancer aged 39… you are never too rich, too famous or too young, says Dr Philippa Kaye

Top 5 Websites to Watch FREE Movies - TV Shows (No Sign up!)

Top 10 Emmanuelle Seigner Movies

The 10 Intense New Action Movies on Netflix That Left Me on the Edge of My Seat!

Ria.city






Read also

Heat vs. Trail Blazers: How to watch online, live stream info, game time, TV channel | March 29

It took 7 years for this San Jose high school to establish a gender-neutral locker room

The Trump Media Stock Bubble

News, articles, comments, with a minute-by-minute update, now on Today24.pro

News Every Day

Top 5 Websites to Watch FREE Movies - TV Shows (No Sign up!)

Today24.pro — latest news 24/7. You can add your news instantly now — here


News Every Day

Top 5 Websites to Watch FREE Movies - TV Shows (No Sign up!)



Sports today


Новости тенниса
WTA

Александрова обыграла первую ракетку мира на турнире WTA



Спорт в России и мире
Москва

Мечевой бой состоялся в павильоне «Спорт для каждого»



All sports news today





Sports in Russia today

Москва

Sitronics Group рассказала о достижениях компании в области корпоративного спорта


Новости России

Game News

Для Wuthering Waves проходит предрегистрация в App Store и Google Play


Russian.city


Москва

«Нас интересует, кто заказчик». За терактами на территории России стоят западные спецслужбы?


Губернаторы России
Владимир Путин

Умер пермский художник, нарисовавший президента Путина с мячом


Заказать недорогой ремонт кухонной мебели в районе в Москве и Московской области

Ученые предупредили сердечников об обрушившейся на Землю магнитной буре класса K-index 3

Суд закрыл процесс по аресту девятого фигуранта дела о теракте в «Крокусе»

Басманный суд арестовал девятого фигуранта дела о теракте в «Крокусе»


Эксперты КА «Главный Советник» приняли участие в форуме «Тренды и антитренды корпоративного видео сегодня»

А надо было ласково? Тимати после слов о "ребятах"-террористах ответили по-мужски

Рэпер ST признался, что не смог написать песню о трагедии в "Крокусе"

Джиган откровенно рассказал, почему начал худеть, и раскрыл свой максимальный вес


Россиянка покинула WTA-1000 из-за проблем со здоровьем

Битые корты: Медведев и Александрова вышли в четвертьфинал Miami Open

Азаренко вышла в полуфинал турнира WTA-1000 в Майами

Александрова впервые войдет в топ-15 мирового рейтинга



Перенос дат II этапа культурного проекта «Классика: история и современность» в Дмитрове

«Радио Зенит» – информационный партнер форума «Мы вместе. Спорт»

Архитектурные доминанты округов Москвы

Шапки женские вязаные на Wildberries, 2024 — новый цвет от 392 руб. (модель 466)


Водителя водовоза, врезавшегося в лайнер в Домодедово, парализовало за рулем

Фильм Джонни Деппа о Модильяни покажут в России

Фильм о пришельцах снятый на деньги мафии

Тема дня: Путин поручил комиссии по НТР представить перечень приоритетных направлений


Март в Expostroy

Россия закрыла мониторинговую миссию ООН по КНДР

В России определились с пилотными зонами 5G — связь нового поколения протестируют сразу в нескольких регионах

Жителей Подмосковья и ТиНАО подключили к гигабитным интернет-скоростям МегаФона



Путин в России и мире






Персональные новости Russian.city
Елена Волкова

Перенос дат II этапа культурного проекта «Классика: история и современность» в Дмитрове



News Every Day

Top 10 Love Affair Movies of the 2000s and 2010s




Friends of Today24

Музыкальные новости

Персональные новости