Korea Eximbank, a state-run bank, has been appointed as the first outside director recommended by a labor union in the domestic financial sector. It is noteworthy whether the ‘union-recommended director system’, in which a person recommended by the union is appointed as an outside director to check the management, will spread to other financial sectors.
According to the financial industry on the 17th, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance notified Su-eun that it would appoint Lee Jae-min, a 67-year-old representative of the Maritime Finance Research Institute, recommended by the labor union, as a non-executive director. CEO Lee is an insider and a ship finance expert who has served as the head of the ship finance division, the export finance division head, and the trade investment finance division head at Mercury. After retiring from Mercury in July 2011, CEO Lee served as a professor of ship finance at Korea Maritime University.
Tae-ho Yoon, a 57-year-old lawyer at the Pacific Law Firm, who was recommended by the company, was also appointed as an outside director. Attorney Yoon, who graduated from the 34th bar exam, served as a judge at the Seoul High Court and a trial researcher at the Supreme Court, and has been working as a Pacific lawyer since 2010.
As the Ministry of Strategy and Finance appointed two people, the number of outside directors increased from three to four. When the term of one outside director ended in May, Sueun received two candidates each from the union and management, and submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance last month. The Ministry of Strategy and Finance selected one candidate from the union and one from the management to balance each other out.
While union-recommended directors are appointed for the first time, it is predicted that the union-recommended board system will be introduced in other financial sectors as well. The union-recommended board system was proposed by the Moon Jae-in administration as one of the top 100 national tasks, but the introduction failed every time. Kookmin Bank had been pushing for it since 2017, but failed to cross the wall of the general meeting of shareholders, and IBK failed in April when the Financial Services Commission chose the management candidate instead of the union-recommended candidate.
By Jung So-ram, staff reporter ram@hankyung.com
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