'Owner 4th Generation' Vice President Heo Seo-hong Promoted to CEO
Vice Chairman Heo Yeon-su Retires
GS Retail is ushering in the era of fourth-generation management. Vice Chairman and CEO of GS Retail, Heo Yeon-su, is stepping down, and Heo Seo-hong, head of the Management Strategy Service Unit (SU) and a fourth-generation family member, has been promoted to CEO.
GS Group announced this executive reshuffle on the 27th. In this personnel change, Heo Yeon-su, CEO of GS Retail, will step down from his position and take a step back to serve as a management advisor.
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Vice Chairman Heo Yeon-su joined GS Retail in 2003 as a new store planning manager after working at LG Sangsa. Over approximately 22 years, he expanded the convenience store and supermarket networks. Since 2016, he has served as CEO, leading the integration of GS Retail and GS Home Shopping. He has also promoted synergies between online and offline channels and new business ventures. GS explained that he made the bold decision to hand over the baton to the next-generation leader who can effectively respond to changes in the retail market.
The new CEO of GS Retail is Heo Seo-hong, Vice President and head of the Management Strategy SU at GS Retail. Heo is the eldest son of Heo Kwang-soo, chairman of Samyang International, and a fifth cousin of Heo Tae-soo, chairman of GS Group. He is also the son-in-law of Hong Seok-hyun, chairman of JoongAng Holdings.
Vice President Heo graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in Western History and from Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He began his career in 2002 as an analyst in the Corporate Finance Department at Samjong KPMG. He then worked in the new business team at GS Home Shopping in 2005, and in 2009, he worked at Chevron and GS Energy. At GS Corporation, he served as head of the Future Business Team, leading new business initiatives at the GS Group level. Last November, he was promoted to Vice President and head of the Management Strategy Service Unit at GS Retail.
During his tenure at GS, the new CEO Heo was responsible for outlining new business plans across the group and led the acquisition of medical aesthetic company Hugel. Starting this year, he moved to GS Retail to oversee overall management including strategy, finance, and new business.
A GS Retail official stated, "In a distribution environment where the boundaries between online and offline are disappearing and competition is intensifying, there is a strong will to innovate core business competitiveness with a new paradigm and to discover new growth engines to achieve sustainable growth."
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