SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won’s daughter Chey Yun-jeong, AmorePacific Group chairman Suh Kyung-bae’s daughter Suh Min-jung and LF president & CEO Koo Bon-keul’s niece Koo Min-jeong have a striking similarity.
The three women are all next-generation chaebol heiresses currently working as junior consultants at the Korean subsidiary of global consulting firm Bain & Company.
They did not enter their family business after graduating, instead choosing to work at a consulting firm to gain experience and broader their networks.
A number of “new daughters” -- second- to fourth-generation chaebol heiresses born in the 1980s and 1990s -- are increasingly choosing consulting firms as their job of choice to train in business management.
Previous chaebol descendants typically entered their family business in their mid-20s after studying overseas, then getting swift promotions within the first three to four years.
Now, there is the additional process of working at a global consulting firm.
Asan Nanum Foundation planning and communications director Chung Nam-i (left) and Hansol Chemical vice president Cho Yeun-joo (right)
Chaebol daughters, especially, have a tendency to work at global consulting firms as they have a more horizontal organizational culture. Additionally, many of them have studied overseas, a big plus when joining these firms.
Chey Yun-jeong attended an international school in Beijing and then graduated from the University of Chicago.
Suh Min-jung, the youngest of the stock rich in Korea -- with assets of over 430 billion won ($367.8 million) in both listed and unlisted companies -- graduated from Cornell University.
Another chaebol daughter who has worked at consulting firms is Chung Nam-i, the planning and communications director at the Asan Nanum Foundation and daughter of Hyundai Heavy Industries’ largest shareholder Chung Mong-joon.
Prior to working at the foundation that fosters youth start-ups, Chung Nam-i also obtained a Master of Business Administration from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked at Bain Korea.
AmorePacific chairman Suh Kyung-bae (left) and Mirae Asset Financial Group chairman Park Hyeon-joo (right)
One of the daughters of Mirae Asset Financial Group chairman Park Hyeon-joo previously worked at a consulting firm, while another continues to do so.
His eldest daughter Park Ha-min, who graduated from Cornell University, worked at McKinsey & Company and CBRE Group for a year each before joining Mirae Asset Global Investments in 2013, while younger daughter Park Eun-min graduated from Duke University and is currently working as a junior consultant at Boston Consulting Group Korea.
The two daughters each own 8.19 percent of the unlisted Mirae Asset Consulting shares, estimated at around 54.8 billion won each.
Cho Yeun-joo, the vice president of Hansol Chemical, is the granddaughter of Hansol Group advisor Lee In-hee and the great-granddaughter of Samsung founder Lee Byung-chull.
She graduated from Wellesley College and earned an MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She also worked as an analyst at both the Boston Consulting Group and Victoria’s Secret before joining Hansol Chemical last March.
The global consulting firms have welcomed the recent trend of chaebol daughters working for them, as their main customers are large corporations and it helps them increase their chances of bagging big projects.
By The Korea Herald Superrich Team (
sangyj@heraldcorp.com)
Hong Seung-wan, Cheon Ye-seon, Bae Ji-sook, Yoon Hyun-jong, Min Sang-seek, Kim Hyun-il, Sang Youn-joo
