Disgraced Ex-CEO to Chair ESG Panel at Samyang Foods
Kim Jung-soo, president of Samyang Foods, is making all-out efforts to regain public trust the company lost due to a major embezzlement scandal. After announcing a plan to introduce a compliance system in February, the company recently announced that it will set up an ESG committee.
In particular, Kim will head up the ESG committee instead of taking up the CEO post. Industry watchers point out that it is not appropriate for Kim to become the head of the ESG Committee as she was involved in the embezzlement scandal. They also suspect that she decided not to become the CEO of the company to avoid the legal responsibility that comes from the CEO post.
Kim is wife of Jeon In-jang, chairman of Samyang Foods. The couple was indicted in 2018 on charges of embezzling 4.9 billion won from the company. Jeon and Kim were put on a trial and sentenced to three years in prison and two years in prison suspended for three years, respectively, by the Supreme Court in January 2020.
The case led to Jeon’s and Kim’s resignation from their posts. Jeon stepped down as CEO of Samyang Foods in March 2018 as his term expired. At the time, the prosecution began to investigate the allegations against the couple. The CEO post was passed to Kim. However, Kim was also forced to step down as CEO in March 2020 as she was excluded from the appointment of an inside director at a general shareholders' meeting, which was convened after her sentence was finalized.
Many industry insiders predicted that former chairman Jeon will indirectly run the company behind bars or Kim will run it through a frontman. However, contrary to their prediction, Kim returned as CEO in October 2020, seven months after she stepped down from the post.