KT&G Board of Directors Officially Launches Procedure to Appoint Next President

Resolution on CEO Candidate Evaluation Criteria on the 28th
CEO Expected to Be Appointed at March Shareholders' Meeting Next Year

KT&G is set to officially initiate the process for appointing its next president.

On the 28th, KT&G announced that it held a board of directors meeting and a Governance Committee meeting, a committee within the board, to approve the criteria for screening presidential candidates. The Governance Committee is composed entirely of outside directors, and only outside directors attended this board meeting to ensure independent decision-making.

On this day, the KT&G board and Governance Committee focused on discussing the plan for selecting candidates for the president screening process and the screening criteria. External preliminary presidential candidates will be composed of diverse individuals who meet the qualifications through open recruitment and recommendations from search firms. Internal preliminary presidential candidates consist of participants in the ‘Senior Executive Development Program’ that has been operating since 2020, as well as current presidents. The Governance Committee will fairly evaluate both external and internal preliminary candidates to determine the pool of presidential candidates.

Subsequently, to ensure a more impartial qualification review, the Governance Committee plans to select presidential candidates by incorporating objective opinions from an appointment advisory group composed of external experts. Additionally, under the leadership of the Governance Committee, KT&G intends to continuously manage external preliminary presidential candidates going forward.

The eligibility criteria for presidential candidates applying through open recruitment require experience working in the tobacco or consumer goods industries (manufacturing and distribution of consumer goods), or experience managing profit and loss as a CEO or in a comparable executive role within a business division. Candidates must also possess ▲a deep understanding of the characteristics of the tobacco or consumer goods industries and management expertise ▲capabilities in new business development and global expertise ▲business intuition and strategic thinking skills to respond to environmental changes ▲communication and management skills with stakeholders ▲and universal morality and ethical awareness required of a top executive.

Submission of application documents for open recruitment will be accepted via registered mail and email until January 10 of next year. Detailed information about the recruitment can be found on the KT&G website starting from the 28th.

KT&G’s presidential appointment process will be conducted fairly and transparently over approximately three months, following related laws and articles of incorporation, through a three-step process: ‘Governance Committee ? Presidential Candidate Recommendation Committee ? Board report and shareholder meeting approval.’

The Governance Committee plans to finalize the list of presidential candidates by the end of January next year and recommend them to the Presidential Candidate Recommendation Committee. The Recommendation Committee will conduct systematic and in-depth discussions on the candidates and select the final candidate by the end of February, reporting to the board. Following the board’s resolution to submit the matter to the shareholders’ meeting, the next president will be officially appointed at the regular shareholders’ meeting at the end of March.

Lim Min-gyu, Chairman of the KT&G Board of Directors, stated, “Through the advancement of the CEO appointment process, we have strengthened transparency, fairness, and objectivity,” adding, “Going forward, we plan to comprehensively consider evaluation opinions from the appointment advisory group composed of external experts and conduct in-depth discussions to proceed with the selection of presidential candidates.”