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September 22, 2008
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Kim Jae-youl, 39, was appointed on Friday as the new head of Kookmin’s research center. Employees in their 20s and 30s have been appointed to high-level positions at other companies, but Kim’s appointment comes as a surprise because the banking industry is generally thought to be conservative. Leadership of a bank’s research center is usually given to those with doctoral degrees or well-known figures in the financial industry. Kim only has a high school diploma, which he received in 1988. He now leads some 100 employees, a majority of whom hold master’s or doctoral degrees. Kim, who is referred to as Korea’s first hacker, was hired by Daewoo Group, where he worked in strategy and planning, after spending time behind bars. “After the hacking incident I became famous and several companies offered me jobs,” Kim said. “I chose Daewoo because they offered me the planning department, which I always wanted to do.” In 1998 he applied for a public servant’s job and later worked for three years at the Ministry of Planning and Budget. Kim in 2001 became an executive in charge of strategy, planning and consulting at Deloitte Anjin LLC. It was at Deloitte that Kim first met Kang Chung-won, head of Kookmin Bank. Kim was doing some consulting work for Seoul Bank, which was run by Kang from 2000 through 2003. When asked about his inexperience in the research field, Kim said although he has switched to several different jobs, he has continuously worked on planning and strategy. “As I have done in the past, I trust that I will do a good job in research,” he said. Kim Young-yoon, a public relations official at Kookmin, said the former hacker was appointed to lead the research department because they needed research that was a step ahead in countering the rapidly changing financial market and someone who could run the research center in new ways. Since September 2007, Kim has worked in management strategy at Daeju Group. During the previous Roh Moo-hyun administration he was an adviser on various government committees including the Presidential Committee on Balanced National Development. By Kim Jun-hyun JoongAng Ilbo [ojlee82@joonagng.co.kr] |
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