Confirmation Hearings for Lee Okwon, Nominee for Financial Services Commission Chair, and Joo Byungki, Nominee for Fair Trade Commission Chair, Set for September 2 and 5

Confirmation Hearing Plans Adopted by Political Affairs Committee

The confirmation hearings for Lee Okwon, nominee for chairman of the Financial Services Commission, and Joo Byungki, nominee for chairman of the Fair Trade Commission, will be held at 10 a.m. on September 2 and September 5, respectively.

Lee Okwon, nominee for Financial Services Commission chairman, is arriving at the confirmation hearing preparation office set up at the Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the 14th. 2025.8.14 Photo by Kang Jinhyung

On August 26, the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee held a plenary session and adopted the confirmation hearing plans containing these details.

The committee, by bipartisan agreement, selected Jung Kyeseong, managing partner at Kim & Chang, Oh Kyusik, vice chairman and CEO of LF, and Kim Sewan, president of the Korea Capital Market Institute, as witnesses for Lee's confirmation hearing. The schedule for adopting the progress reports on both nominees will be determined through discussions between the ruling and opposition party secretaries after the hearings are concluded.

Nominated as the first chairman of the Financial Services Commission under the Lee Jaemyung administration, Lee is a career economic bureaucrat and is considered a leading expert in macroeconomics. He has held key positions such as Director of Future Strategy at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and during the Moon Jaein administration, he served as Director General for Economic Structure Reform and Director General for Economic Policy. In 2020, he was appointed as Secretary for Economic Policy at the Presidential Office, and the following year, he became the First Vice Minister of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Joo, a professor of economics at Seoul National University, is recognized as an authority in the fields of income inequality reduction and fair economic systems. He has served as president of the Korean Association of Applied Economics and as a member of the Presidential National Economic Advisory Council. During the last presidential election, he served as head of the economic division for then-candidate and current President Lee Jaemyung’s campaign, where he designed policies related to fair economy.