The Executive Candidate Recommendation Committee (ECRC) of Woori Financial Group announced on the 29th that it has recommended the current chairman, Lim Jongryong, as the final candidate for the next chairman. This comes about two months after the ECRC initiated the management succession process on October 28.
Lee Kanghaeng, chairman of the ECRC, explained the background for recommending Chairman Lim, stating, "During his tenure, he successfully entered the securities business and acquired an insurance company, thereby completing the comprehensive financial group portfolio. He also improved financial stability by narrowing the gap in the common equity tier 1 capital ratio, which had been inferior compared to other groups."
He further emphasized, "Chairman Lim's proactive shareholder return policies more than doubled the group's market capitalization and improved the group's credibility through corporate culture innovation. These achievements over the past three years were highly evaluated by the committee members."
The ECRC identified Woori Financial Group's immediate task as leveraging the completion of its securities and insurance businesses to focus on nurturing these subsidiaries, thereby achieving a stable leap to become a top-tier comprehensive financial group.
Additionally, the committee judged that it is important to systematically prepare for the era of artificial intelligence (AI) and stablecoins, secure a firm market-leading position, and enhance corporate value by capitalizing on the group's strengths in corporate finance and creating synergies among its capital market affiliates during this period of major transformation in productive finance.
Chairman Lee stated, "The vision and direction presented by Chairman Lim were clear and specific. He fully meets the leadership profile defined in the management succession plan for Woori Financial Group and is highly trusted both internally and externally, which was also highly regarded."
He added, "Woori Financial Group faithfully reflected the Financial Supervisory Service's best practices for governance by fully revising its management succession regulations and CEO succession plan in February 2024. In line with these regulations and principles, we have managed a pool of internal and external candidates over the past two years, and this succession program was also conducted accordingly."
Meanwhile, the ECRC began the management succession process on October 28 and, after about three weeks of thorough review of the candidate pool, recommended a long list of candidates on November 17.
Subsequently, through evaluations such as background checks and interviews, the committee recommended a shortlist of two internal and two external candidates on December 1. The committee explained that it conducted a variety of evaluation and verification processes, including management plan presentations, in-depth interviews with ECRC members, and multiple interviews with outside experts for all four candidates, including the two external nominees, over the course of about a month.
Lim Jongryong, the final recommended candidate, will be inaugurated as the next chairman with a three-year term if approved at the regular general shareholders' meeting scheduled for March next year.
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