More foreign firms in Korea name female CEOs

By Choi Kyong-ae

Multinational corporations have appointed more women into leadership roles in their Korean operations over the past two years.

The moves are in line with a recent trend in Korea where financial and other public firms are appointing female executives to top positions.

The trend witnessed a significant boost after President Park Geun-hye took office in February last year as the country’s first female commander-in-chief.

For instance, Daimler Group has named two women in the past 11 months into top positions separately in car sales and auto financing in Korea, Mercedes-Benz Korea, the Korean unit of the Germen auto-making giant, said Monday.

Britta Seeger was appointed CEO of Mercedes-Benz Korea in March last year and Adi Ofek CEO of Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Korea this month.

IBM Korea, AstraZeneca Korea and Janssen Korea have also named females to executive positions, according to the firms.

Korean companies still lag behind advanced countries in promoting gender diversity in decision-making positions. Breaking the glass ceiling and going up the promotion ladder at corporations remains a major obstacle to improving gender diversity in Korea.

Until recently, most of the foreign corporations operating here were not very different from local corporations in terms of promoting gender diversity at the executive level.

However, the election of the country’s first female president has seemingly brought some changes to the male-dominated board rooms and the C-suite. Given this, it is expected that there will be more female executives in major leadership roles within the local corporate environment, at least for the next four years through 2017. Park’s five-year term ends in February, 2018.

Female executives are often praised for being keen on balancing work and family life. But they sometimes have difficulty getting the backing of male partners when making key decisions.

Other female executives include IBM Korea CEO Shirley Yu-Tsui, AstraZeneca Korea CEO Liz Chatwin and Janssen Korea CEO Kim Oak-yeon.