November 25, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] JB Financial Group on Dec. 19 appointed Kim Ki-hong, head of JB Asset Management, as its new chairman, whose three-year term will be approved at a shareholders meeting planned in March.

This will mark the first leadership change since the financial group with 47 trillion won (US$41.68 billion) in assets adopted a holding company scheme in 2013. Incumbent Chairman Kim Han had earlier expressed he would not seek a third consecutive term. 

Kim Ki-hong

The 62-year-old incoming chairman majored in business administration at Barrett the Honors College in Arizona. He earned a master’s degree from Missouri State University and then a PhD at Georgia State University. After working at several think tanks in Korea, he served as assistant deputy director to then Financial Supervisory Service Chairman Lee Heon-jae in 1999.

He subsequently taught at Chungbuk University and served as an outside director of KB Kookmin Bank. In 2006, he became chief deputy chairman of Kookmin Bank and led its shift to a holding company to create the current KB Financial Group.

It was during this time that he developed a close relationship with the current JB chairman who was also an outside director of KB at the time. After a stint at Pan Asia ReConsulting, an insurance firm, he took office to lead JB Asset Management in 2014.

“Kim, with more than 20 years of experience in the financial industry, is equipped with superior leadership and communication skills,” an official of the nomination committee said. “He is the right man to lead the group’s growth in the ever-evolving financial market.”

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)