Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee will host a dinner at the Shilla hotel on Aug. 16 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his declaration of the “New Management Initiative.”

According to the group on Tuesday, Lee will invite the chief executives and vice presidential-level officials of all its subsidiary companies to the dinner.

He will join them at a get-together for the first time in about seven months after his birthday dinner on Jan. 9.

During the dinner, Lee will likely look back over the past two decades and ask high ranking managers to make the leap to a new level of corporate growth, officials said.

This year has a special meaning for being a milestone marking the 20th year after he called for sweeping reform, saying: “change everything but your wife and children.”

However, no special, unofficial event has been held to commemorate the 20th anniversary. Lee only sent an email to all 38,000 directors and employees of Samsung units on June 7, the official anniversary day. In the email, he asked them to step up efforts to make a new take-off.

The dinner is said to be timed to coincide with the final day of his tour of eight cities, including Frankfurt, Germany, 20 years ago, to launch the New Management movement.

Lee is also expected to urge the high-ranking officials at the dinner to come up with fresh ideas to defend the world-leading status of the group, as well as praising them.

Attention is on whether he will mention environment and safety issues in connection with the latest accidents in Samsung Electronics and Samsung Engineering.

Lee went to his office on July 30 after returning home from abroad July 27, and a week later on Aug. 8, he showed up at the office again.

By Chun Sung-woo (swchun@heraldcorp.com)