LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo on Thursday made an appearance at the LG Tech Conference that was held for the first time in four years, which shows his devotion to seeking engineering talents in artificial intelligence (AI), bio, and clean technology areas.

LG Group held the first conference in 2012 but the gathering stopped for three years from 2019 due to the pandemic. About 400 talents in the field of engineering research & development attended the conference.

Kwon Bong-seok, vice chairman of LG Corp., Park Il-pyung, president of LG Science Park, and other executives joined the event.

“LG has a dream to make the world a happier place by offering people pleasant experiences and turning imagination into reality,“ Koo said. “To realize that dream, we need technology, innovation, and people that help us obtain the two components. This is a basic principle engraved in the 75-year history of LG Group.”

Ever since he became chairman in 2018, Koo has been focusing on recruiting and fostering talented people. He invited professionals regardless of age and gender and recruited skilled individuals with innovative ideas.

LG Group has recruited as many as 90 executive-level officers from the outside between 2018 and 2022.

Many of the officers are professionals in the AI, bio, and clean tech sectors. LG AI Research Center was joined by Lee Hong-lak, one of the world’s top 10 AI experts and professor at the University of Michigan, and Lee Moon-tae, an AI expert and professor at the University of Illinois.

In bio, Noh Ji-hye from biopharmaceutical company Hugel Inc. joined as director at LG Chem Ltd. and in clean tech, Son Seung-man from SC Johnson as executive director at LG Chem.

Koo has been taking more active steps in business.

He held this year’s first meeting of the presidents on March 8 and discussed approaches to future changes and strategies for improvement in customer value. Koo also shared with them industrial trends, such as automotive electrification and mitigation of carbon emissions.

”It‘s imperative for us to seek new growth opportunities and make future plans despite growing business uncertainty,” Koo said.

By Choi Seung-jin and Han Yubin

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