South Korea’s third largest conglomerate SK Group on Thursday kept top chiefs at key companies intact while bringing in younger, foreign and female executives on the management.

SK Group on Thursday announced a total of 117 new names in its annual executive reshuffle that included nine promotions to chief executive.

The executive reshuffle was scaled down from last year as the group has abolished seniority-based promotion for its senior executives. Since August 1, all senior executives have been addressed by their job duties, such as director, instead of their ranks such as executive vice president, and so the latest change does not include any promotion to the vice president level.

During the group’s annual reshuffle, three heads of mainstay units have retained their leadership – Kim Jun of SK Innovation, Park Jung-ho of SK Telecom, and Jang Dong-hyun of SK Holdings.

Park Sung-ha, head of strategy committee at the group’s SUPEX Council, was chosen to head SK Holdings C&C. Cha Gyu-tak, director of SK Lubricants’ base oil business, was tapped as the new head of the lubricant unit.

ADT Caps CEO Choi Jin-hwan was picked as the new chief of broadband unit SK Broadband, and SK Holdings’ investment division director Lee Yong-uk as the new head of specialty gas for semiconductors and display panels unit SK Materials.

Current SK Materials CEO Jang Yong-ho will move to head the silicon wafer-making unit SK Siltron.

In chip-making SK Hynix, two were promoted to chief executive level – Jin kyo-won, vice chief executive at the DRAM development division, to new head for development and manufacturing and Jin Jung-hoon, vice chief for global business at SK Hynix America, to new CEO.

Others newly promoted to President & CEO include Cho Jeong-woo of SK Biopharmaceuticals and Cho Don-hyun of SK University.

Meanwhile, seven females moved up to executive posts, the largest in the group history, raising total female count on management to 27.

By Han Ye-kyung, Chun Gyung-woon and Lee Ha-yeon

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