Jeong Won-oh, Mayor of Seongdong-gu, Serving as a 3-Term Mayor for 10 Years, Has a Firm Grip on Senior Staff
Secret to Organizational Management: Always Promoting at Least One Grade 5 Official with 6 Months Left to Grade 4
Maintains the Practice of Moving Directors According to Grade 4 Promotion Order
Jeong Won-oh is a three-term mayor of Seongdong-gu.
Mayor Jeong holds the record as the second longest-serving mayor of Seongdong-gu, following former Mayor Ko Jae-deuk, who served four terms.
Mayor Jeong has become a fixture in Seongdong-gu. He served as a parliamentary aide when former Presidential Chief of Staff Lim Jong-seok was a two-term National Assembly member from Seongdong-gu, and later served as the head of the Seongdong-gu Facilities Management Corporation during former Mayor Ko Jae-deuk’s tenure, making him an expert well-versed in both the Seongdong-gu region and its network.
After being elected as mayor in the 6th local election term, Mayor Jeong has managed Seongdong-gu for 10 years and is known to have a unique personnel strategy.
First, to maintain organizational stability, Mayor Jeong promotes Grade 5 (department head level) public officials who have about six months left before retirement to Grade 4.
He has especially upheld this principle from the 6th through the 7th local election terms.
For example, former Welfare Director Moon Gwang-seon, who entered honorary retirement as of July 1, is a representative figure. Former directors Kim Young-mi, Kim Cheol-soon, Hwang Kyu-young, Kim Kyung-sun, and current Welfare Director Lee Jeong-hee are also cases in point.
Since the 7th term, Grade 5 department heads with six months left before retirement have continuously been promoted to Grade 4.
This creates a vacancy in a Grade 4 position six months later, which in turn triggers a chain of promotions for Grades 5 and 6.
Additionally, department heads with high performance evaluations and more than two years remaining have also been promoted one by one to circulate positions.
Administrative Management Director Lee Hyun-sik and Planning and Finance Director Eo Yong-gyeong have held director positions for over two years.
Along with this, Mayor Jeong strictly follows order when assigning promotions.
It is an unwritten rule not to place newly promoted Grade 4 directors at the top of the hierarchy. For instance, newly promoted former General Affairs Director Song Jun-myung was assigned as Director of the Smart Inclusion Bureau.
Former Welfare Director Moon Gwang-seon’s position was filled by newly promoted six-month Grade 4 Lee Jeong-hee, formerly of the Housing Policy Division.
And Planning and Finance Director Moon Seong-su, who entered honorary retirement at the end of June, was succeeded by Smart Inclusion City Bureau Director Eo Yong-gyeong.
In this way, Mayor Jeong is regarded as a mayor who strictly adheres to personnel principles of ‘organizational stability’ and ‘order maintenance.’
Especially having served as mayor of Seongdong-gu for 10 years, he is said to know the abilities and qualities of most public officials Grade 6 and above, and personally assigns almost all staff positions.
The most important aspect of organizational management is personnel management.
This reflects the meticulous way he operates the organization.
A district official stated, “Mayor Jeong not only knows the work well but also understands the staff deeply, giving him exceptional organizational control.”
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