Samsung’s 4 heirs: who will lead South Korea’s smartphone and tech chaebol after late chairman Lee Kun-hee, and how much do you know about them?
- Lee Jae-yong is the only son and Samsung’s vice-president with a US$12.3 billion net worth – but he’s currently in prison serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence
- Daughters Lee Boo-jin and Lee Seo-hyun oversee Shilla Hotel and Samsung Welfare Foundation, but don’t forget Seo-hyun’s husband and Olympics adviser Kim Jae-yeol
Much like the way K-drama and K-pop dominates screens and airwaves today, we can’t talk about smartphone brands without mentioning Samsung.
Besides electronics and tech, Samsung also has arms dedicated to finance, engineering, education, entertainment and even sports, and was one of the companies that gave South Korea a major boost from the 1960s to the 1990s, helping transform the country from a post-war ruin to the 12th largest economy in the world.
It’s also one of South Korea’s biggest family-controlled conglomerates, or chaebol, which has seen its fair share of controversy over the years. The death of Lee Kun-hee, the chairman of Samsung Electronics, was a huge news topic in 2020, and now all eyes are on his heirs. But just how much do you know about them?
Lee Jae-yong
Lee Jae-yong, or Jay Y. Lee, is the only son of Lee Kun-hee and vice-chairman of Samsung Electronics. He started working for Samsung in 1991, immediately taking on a management position. In 1997, he married fellow heir Lim Se-ryung of the chaebol Daesang Group, but they eventually got divorced in 2009.
The 52-year-old and his family ranked 176 out of 500 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index at the time of writing, with an estimated net worth of US$12.3 billion.
