Does Seo Ji-hye of Crash Landing on You suit the chaebol heiress look?

So who are the real life chaebols? We take a look at the richest business empires and most successful heirs in Korea today.

LG

Founded in 1947, LG is the fourth-largest chaebol in Korea. LG makes electronics, chemicals and telecommunication products and operates subsidiaries such as LG Display, a global market leader of OLED TV, LG Electronics, LG Uplus, LG Chem, and LG Household and Health Care. The conglomerate was established as Lucky Chemical, which is now LG Chem.

Lucky and its affiliates recorded many first-made-in-Korea stamps. Lucky Chemical produced the first PVC pipe in Korea in 1956. In 1958, LG founder Koo In-hwoi founded GoldStar (now LG Electronics), which made the first radio and the first automatic telephone in Korea. The two companies were merged and formed LG in 1983.

Koo Kwang-mo (41), chairman of LG Group

Koo became LG Group chairman at the age of 40 in 2018 when late chairman Koo Bon-moo passed away. He is the largest shareholder of LG Holdings, with 15 per cent of the whole stocks. Koo is known as a smart, polite and open-minded leader who sometimes goes to the company cafeteria to eat ramen. He is the late Koo Bon-moo’s nephew and was adopted by Koo in 2004 to become the successor, following the LG family's firstborn-son successor principle. Koo's only son died in 1994.

Hanwha Corporation

Hanwha Corporation is a chaebol with three divisions: explosives and defence, trade, and machinery. Founded in 1952 as Korea Explosives Company, it became the first manufacturer of dynamite in Korea. In 1974, the company entered the defence industry and started providing the Korean military precision-guided munitions, advanced ammunition, navigation systems, and underwater surveillance equipment. In 2014, Hanwha entered the mining services market and rapidly grew the new business by acquiring Australian mining service company LDE.

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Kim is the first son of current Hanwha Group CEO Kim Seung-yeon, and also CCO of Hanwha Q Cells. Q Cells is a manufacturer of photovoltaic solar cells that is rising as the core business of Hanwha. He is said to be the most likely candidate to take over the business, and is the second-largest shareholder of Hanwha Holdings – with 4.44 per cent of the shares – after his father (22.6 per cent).

Kim is a Harvard University graduate who majored in government and started working in Hanwha in 2010. While his father and two little brothers have been accused of violence, Kim is known as a nice and calm-minded businessman. His marriage recently received attention from the public as it was different from other chaebols'. According to Korean media, the woman he married is from a non-conglomerate family and is a former Hanwha employee he dated for 10 years.

Doosan Group

Founded in 1896, Doosan is a multinational conglomerate. Its core businesses are based on the infrastructure support business (ISB), providing electrical power, desalinated drinking water, construction equipment, advanced machinery, defence supplies, houses, motorways and bridge construction, chemical processing equipment and industrial engines. For foreign visitors to Korea, it is well known as Doota Duty Free, which is Korea's first duty free shop.

Park Seo-won (40), vice-president of Oricom and CEO of Doosan Magazine

Park is the eldest son of Park Yongmann, CEO of Doosan. As a public relations expert, he heads the communications and media businesses of the conglomerate.

Park graduated from the School of Visual Arts in the US and majored in design. He is well known for winning many international advertisement awards. One of his co-produced ads reads, “What goes around comes around. Stop the Iraq war”.

He surprised people with a unique career as a chaebol: in 2014, he started a condom design and manufacturing business to promote safe sex awareness. The product’s name was Bareun Saenggak (“right thought”), implying that condoms are not shameful to use but the correct choice when having sex. Park has said he wanted to help reduce the abortion rate in Korea and donated part of the revenue to producing teenagers' sex education content.

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Hyundai

As an industrial conglomerate, Hyundai has several groups: Hyundai Group, which has real estate construction company Hyundai Asan, the world-renowned automotive maker Hyundai Motor Group, one of the largest shipbuilders worldwide Hyundai Heavy Industries Group, Hyundai Department Store Group, and real estate and construction group Hyundai Development Company Group.

The foundation of Hyundai is said to be an “industrial legend of Korea”. It was established in 1946, the year of Korea's liberation from Japanese, and became the world's biggest carmaker and shipbuilder.

Chung Kyung-sun (33), CEO of Root Impact

Grandson of Hyundai founder Chung Ju-yung and son of Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance group chairman Chung Mong-yoon, Chung is a social innovation leader focusing on non-profit organisation. He founded Root Impact in 2015, one of the largest co-working offices and social venture ecosystem promoters in Seoul. Root Impact is partnered with world-renowned organisation Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors to fund a global philanthropy programme. In a recent media interview Chung said that if a company's private profit and public benefit are in contrast, it can hardly survive. He holds 0.31 per cent of his father's company shares, while his father holds 21.9 per cent. Chung is completing an MBA at America’s Columbia University.

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SK Group

SK Group is the third largest conglomerate in Korea. Founded in 1953, SK consists of over 90 subsidiary companies.

It owns the largest wireless mobile phone service provider in Korea, SK Telecom, and offers services such as construction, shipping, marketing, internet and wireless broadband. In 2010, the group merged Hynix into SK Hynix, the second largest memory semiconductor producer worldwide.

Chey Min-jeong (29), SK Hynix

As the second daughter of SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, Choi’s career path is extraordinary. She went to the Korean Naval Academy in 2014, a training school that raises marine soldiers. She was one of 18 females who gained admission to the school from 120 annually.

The public especially respected this decision, as many of male chaebols try to avoid national military service. Lee Jae-yong, for example, vice-chairman of Samsung Electronics, was exempt from military service because of back problems – however photos emerged of Lee taking a wide swing at a golf course and people began to doubt his supposed medical condition.

Chung Yong-jin, vice-chairman of Shinsegae Group, was exempt simply because he was overweight. The exemption – standard at that time – was above 103kg, and he weighed 104kg. Chung Eui-sun, executive vice-chairman of Hyundai Motor Company, was exempt as he had laparocholecystotomy. Choi Jae-won, vice-chairman of SK E&S, and Chey Tae-won, SK Group chairman, were also both exempt for being overweight.

Choi, however, served her obligation in some of the toughest regions including the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the border North Korea has crossed several times to attack, and the Gulf of Aden.

Chey graduated from Peking University in 2014. She works for semiconductor company SK Hynix and also is a visiting researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a world-renowned think-tank in the US

Ottogi

Ottogi is one of the biggest food manufacturing companies in Korea. Its diverse products, from curry to ketchup and ramen, are beloved by Koreans.

Founded in 1969, its first product, Ottogi curry, was the first Korean-made curry introduced to the Korean market. The company's signature products include soup powder, ketchup, mayonnaise, frozen food, “Jin” ramen, and canned tuna.

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Ham Yeon-ji (27), musical actress

Ham is Ottogi chairman Ham Young-joon's daughter. She majored in acting at New York University Tisch School of the Arts and made her debut in 2014, playing Scarlett O'Hara when Gone with the Wind staged in Korea.

She graduated from Daewon Foreign Language High School, one of the most prestigious high schools in Korea. In a TVN program Problematic Men, aired on December 18, 2018, she said she gained admission to the school with the highest score among the students after studying hard.

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