Chey Tae-won, Chairman of South Korea’s third largest conglomerate SK Group, will step down from his position as board chairman of the group’s holding entity SK Holdings Co. in a bid to improve board independency and shareholders’ trust.

Chey has doubled as CEO and chairman of board of directors of SK Holdings since 2016, but decided to resign as the board head once his term ends in March following the management’s decision to separate the roles of board of directors’ chairman and chief executive, according to sources. He will continue to serve as a co-CEO of SK Holdings with Jang Dong-hyun.

Sources said that Korea University President Yeom Jae-ho, who is named as an independent director of SK Holdings, will succeed the board chairman position. The agendas will be put to vote in upcoming shareholders’ meeting scheduled in late March.

As part of the group-wide efforts to separate the board chairman and CEO roles to enhance board independency, executives who double the both roles in its major affiliates such as SK Innovation, SK Hynix and SK Telecom will leave the board chairman position. The companies plan to seat an independent director on the chair position at their shareholders’ meeting in March.

The measure has been increasingly taken by global companies who aim to raise trust of shareholders by boosting independence and effectiveness of the board’s decision-making. Samsung Electronics also banned corporate executives from leading the board of directors since last March.

By Han Ye-kyung and Choi Mira

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