SK Group executives will hold a meeting to establish survival strategies over a two-day period. It has been confirmed that Choi Yoon-jung, the eldest daughter of Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, will participate for the second consecutive year after joining last year, also as the head of growth support at SK Inc. and head of business development at SK Biopharm (vice president). As she has started to be responsible for discovering future food sources for the group since last year, she is expected to actively voice her opinions in the group management.
According to reports on the 13th, SK Group will hold its '2025 Management Strategy Meeting' for two days starting today at the SKMS Research Institute in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province. The management strategy meeting is considered one of the three core meetings of SK Group along with the Icheon Forum in August and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) seminar in October. This year's meeting is expected to be attended by chairman Chey and more than 30 CEOs of major subsidiaries, including Choi Chang-won, chairman of SK SUPEX Council, and Choi Jae-won, vice chairman of SK Innovation.
Drawing attention on the attendee list is Deputy Minister Choi. Deputy Minister Choi first attended the management strategy meeting last year, making her the only representative at the vice president level. She has held the position since late last year at the newly established 'Growth Support' organization created by the group holding company, SK Inc., for business development. One of the main agenda items for this meeting is expected to be the expansion of investment in future growth engines, which indicates that Deputy Minister Choi will actively participate in group management.
The succession structure of SK Group remains unclear, but assessments indicate that Deputy Minister Choi's management footprint is particularly prominent. She joined SK Biopharm's management strategy office in 2017 as a senior manager at the entry level and was promoted to vice president at the end of 2023, making her the youngest executive in the group. Additionally, she took on the role of vice president of the holding company at the end of last year, holding two vice president positions within the group after just seven years of employment. Her younger sister, Choi Min-jung, is independently active in the U.S. after resigning from SK hynix, and her elder brother, Choi In-gun, is responsible for global energy business as a manager at SK E&S's North America subsidiary.
SK Group is expected to review the results of the rebalancing efforts initiated last year and revise its future strategies at this meeting. Rebalancing involves boldly restructuring overlapping businesses among subsidiaries and businesses with no future growth prospects, while strengthening the financial soundness of each subsidiary. The number of subsidiaries has decreased from 219 at the end of 2023 to 198 now. Currently, the sale of SK Siltron, a semiconductor wafer manufacturer, is also in progress.
As this is the first group meeting since the inauguration of the Lee Jae-myung administration, discussions are also expected on investment strategies for key national industries. The Lee Jae-myung administration identifies artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced semiconductors as future industries, which aligns with SK Group's direction of investing over 100 trillion won in AI and semiconductors by 2026.
Chairman Chey has repeatedly emphasized the importance of AI, stating, "Our country’s formerly celebrated exports could lose competitiveness without the help of AI, leading to potential issues with the national economic model itself." In addition, various risk response measures, including ways to regain customer trust following the recent SK Telecom security incident, Donald Trump's tariff policies, and subsidy reductions, are expected to be established during this meeting.