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Photo = Yonhap news |
[Alpha Biz= Kim Jisun] President Lee Jae-myung has unveiled his first cabinet nominations, with notable appointments of business leaders drawing significant attention. The selections reflect a strong emphasis on practicality and innovation, aligning with Lee’s agenda of fostering a technology-driven, pragmatic administration.
Among the 11 nominees announced on June 23, several come from private sector backgrounds, including former executives from LG and Naver, further highlighting the administration's intent to integrate industrial expertise into public governance.
Bae Kyung-hoon, President of LG AI Research, was nominated as Minister of Science and ICT. Born in 1976 in Seoul, Bae holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in Electronic Engineering from Kwangwoon University, and an MBA from Columbia Southern University. He previously worked at SK Telecom’s Institute of Future Technology before joining LG, where he has served as head of LG AI Research since 2020.
Bae is recognized as a leading AI expert, having led the development of Exaone, LG’s large-scale language model (LLM). Under his leadership, LG released Exaone 1.0 in 2021, followed by Exaone 3.5 in December 2023 and Exaone Deep, Korea’s first inference AI, in March 2024. In 2023, Bae was awarded the Silver Tower Order of Industrial Service Merit by the Ministry of Science and ICT.
Ha Jung-woo, who was recently appointed as Chief Presidential Secretary for Future AI Strategy, also hails from the tech sector. Born in 1977 in Busan, Ha earned his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Seoul National University, where he also completed his undergraduate degree in Computer Science. He led Naver AI Lab from 2020, collaborating with top institutions including KAIST and Seoul National University. Ha and Bae are known advocates of sovereign AI strategies in South Korea.
In addition, Yoon Chang-ryeol, a long-serving public official and head of LG Global Strategy Development Institute, has been appointed as Minister for Government Policy Coordination, a ministerial-level post. Yoon previously worked for more than 30 years in the Prime Minister’s Office and joined LG in 2023 to lead its strategic think tank.
For Minister of SMEs and Startups, Han Seong-sook, former CEO of Naver, has been nominated. Born in 1967, Han graduated from Sookmyung Women’s University with a degree in English Literature and began her career as a tech journalist. After working at Empas, she joined Naver in 2007, eventually rising to become the company's first female CEO in 2017. She is widely regarded as a trailblazer in Korea’s internet industry.
These appointments underscore President Lee’s intent to leverage industrial insight and tech-sector leadership as he sets the tone for a pragmatic and innovation-oriented administration.
AlphaBIZ Kim Jisun(stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
