Jinyoung Shin, Head of the Capital Market Research Institute, to Return to University After Retirement at the End of This Month

Director Recruitment Process Suddenly Canceled and Resumed
Document Submission Completed and Interviews Nearing Completion
Director Shin Jinyoung to Return to Professorship from December

Asia Exclusive_ Shin Jin-young, President of the Korea Capital Market Institute. / Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

Shin Jin-young, the president of the Korea Capital Market Institute, will retire at the end of this month. The Institute's Candidate Recommendation Committee (CRC) is reported to have completed interviews for the next president.

According to the financial investment industry on the 20th, the Institute will hold Shin's retirement ceremony next week. After retiring, Shin will return to a university professorship starting in December.

President Shin graduated from the Department of Economics at Seoul National University and earned a master's degree. He then obtained a master's and doctoral degree from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. From September 2002, he served as a professor in the Department of Business Administration at Yonsei University, later became the president of the Korea ESG Standards Institute (formerly the Korea Corporate Governance Service), and was appointed president of the Korea Capital Market Institute in September 2021. Shin's term ended on September 30 of last year.

The Institute's CRC began the process of selecting the next president early and closed the application submission on September 4. However, the recruitment process was suspended for over two months. The CRC suddenly canceled the closed application procedure and restarted the recruitment process for the next president from scratch on the 1st of this month. This sparked controversy over fairness both inside and outside the Institute.

The Korea Capital Market Institute, established in 1997, is a specialized research organization. Originally, the next president was decided by internal recommendation, but since its founding, there have always been allegations of "parachute appointments." Former president Shin In-seok, who served as a professional member of the Presidential Transition Committee under the Park Geun-hye administration, submitted his application alone in 2014, which fueled controversy. Former president Ahn Dong-hyun also abruptly resigned in 2018, early in the Moon Jae-in administration, with one year left in his term. Rumors circulated that he could not complete his term because he was an appointee of the previous administration.

In response, the Institute abandoned the internal recommendation method and began selecting presidents through an open recruitment process starting in 2021. Shin is the second president appointed through this process. With Shin retiring at the end of this month, the new president is expected to take office in December. However, industry views suggest that the new president will still not be free from the "parachute" label. The CRC's decision to cancel the application process that had closed in September without special reasons and to reopen submissions during this year's recruitment process is expected to make it difficult to avoid controversy over procedural transparency.