"Chose Planes Over Home"... Lunar New Year Given Up for "Chairman Management"

Lee Jaeyong and Choi Taewon pursue on-site diplomacy overseas
Domestic leaders recharge while pondering management strategies

Top leaders of major conglomerates, including Lee Jaeyong, Chairman of Samsung Electronics, and Choi Taewon, Chairman of SK Group, who head the two pillars of Korea's semiconductor industry, are giving up their Lunar New Year holidays to focus on on-site management. This contrasts with last year’s Lunar New Year, which was a "golden holiday," when most conglomerate heads stayed at home and concentrated on management strategy.

Conglomerate chiefs hit the road... 'Private diplomacy' in the U.S. and Europe

According to the business community on February 13, Chairman Lee is expected to focus on networking with key political and business figures in Europe during the Lunar New Year holiday. On February 5, he flew to the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics venues, where he carried out "sports diplomacy" by meeting with top leaders such as U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and Italian President Sergio Mattarella.

Chairman Lee is currently staying in Paris, France. He is expected to continue meeting business partners from across Europe there as he works to identify new future growth engines. When he visited the Paris 2024 Olympics, he also stayed for two weeks and met with French President Emmanuel Macron and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Given that Samsung Electronics has major production bases in Eastern European countries such as Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary, there is speculation that he may also visit local business sites.

Huang Jensen, CEO of NVIDIA, Lee Jaeyong, Chairman of Samsung Electronics, and Chung Euisun, Chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, are greeting fans at the NVIDIA GeForce Gamer Festival held on October 30 at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. 2025.10.30 Photo by Cho Yongjun

Choi Taewon, Chairman of SK Group, is likewise expected to spend the Lunar New Year holiday on overseas schedules. Earlier, it drew attention when news emerged that on February 5 he had met with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang at "99 Chicken," a Korean fried chicken restaurant in Santa Clara, California. It is presumed that they discussed supplying sixth-generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM4) for "Vera Rubin," NVIDIA’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) accelerator to be launched this year. As Samsung Electronics’ mass production and shipment of HBM4, originally expected in the third week of this month, was suddenly announced on February 12, Chairman Choi is expected to further intensify his strategic deliberations to avoid losing the initiative.

After continuing meetings with partner companies locally, Chairman Choi is scheduled to attend the Trans-Pacific Dialogue (TPD), hosted by the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies, to be held in Washington, D.C., from February 20 to 21. As he serves as Chairman of the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies, there is a possibility that, as in last year, he will again take the podium for a special speech. Now in its sixth year, the TPD is an international forum that discusses security, economic, and diplomatic issues in the Northeast Asia and Pacific regions. This year’s list of key opinion leaders includes Kurt Campbell, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Yamada Shigeo, Japanese Ambassador to the United States, and Stephen Walt, professor at Harvard University.

Jointly hosted by Seoul City and the Seoul Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the "Seoul City New Year's Reception" was held on the 7th at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Jung-gu, Seoul. Key attendees, including Chey Taewon, chairman of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Oh Sehoon, mayor of Seoul; and Choi Hojung, chair of the Seoul Metropolitan Council, are raising a toast. 2025.01.07 Photo by Yoon Dongju

Staying still on the surface, busy beneath

Conglomerate heads without special schedules during the holiday are expected to spend time with their families while concentrating on business strategy. Chung Euisun, Chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, who recently joined Canada’s Special Envoy for Defense Procurement to provide support fire for winning a submarine contract, is expected to stay at his home in Hannam-dong, Seoul during the holiday period as he explores survival strategies for the company. Although Hyundai Motor and Kia together ushered in the "300 trillion won era" in combined sales last year, they cannot simply be pleased, as tariff risks originating in the United States have resurfaced. In the automobile industry, where exports to the United States are a key focus, it is estimated that Hyundai Motor and Kia suffered a total of 4.6 trillion won in damage in just the second and third quarters of last year due to the 25% U.S. auto tariff.

Koo Kwangmo, Chairman of LG Group, is also understood to have no significant external schedule. His main concerns are expected to include strengthening the competitiveness of the group’s core businesses, which are under pressure from China’s low-price offensive, and exploring ways to expand new growth platforms such as physical AI and robotics.

Chung Kisun, Chairman of HD Hyundai, likewise plans not to set any special schedule during the Lunar New Year holiday and instead review this year’s management plans. Rather than carrying out special public activities, Vice Chairman Kim Dongkwan of Hanwha is expected to focus on issues such as expanding defense exports to Europe, strategies for the Korea-U.S. shipbuilding cooperation initiative MASGA (Make American Shipbuilding Great Again), and winning the Canadian submarine program.

Lutnick Howard, US Secretary of Commerce, is greeting Lee Jaeyong, Chairman of Samsung Electronics, and Koo Kwangmo, Chairman of LG, among others at the Korea-US Business Roundtable during the CEO Summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit held at Gyeongju Arts Center in North Gyeongsang on October 29, 2025. Photo by Kang Jinhyung