Lee Kun-hee

Lee Kun-hee

Lee Kun-hee was a South Korean businessman who served as chairman of the Samsung Group from 1987 to 2008. He is credited with the transformation of Samsung to the world’s largest manufacturer of smartphones, televisions, and memory chips. He was convicted twice, once in 1996 and subsequently in 2008, for corruption and tax evasion charges, but was pardoned on both instances. In 2014, Lee was named the world’s 35th most powerful person and the most powerful Korean by Forbes’ list of world’s most powerful people along with his son, Lee Jae-yong.

About Lee Kun-hee in brief

Summary Lee Kun-heeLee Kun-hee was a South Korean businessman who served as chairman of the Samsung Group from 1987 to 2008 and from 2010 to 2020. He is credited with the transformation of Samsung to the world’s largest manufacturer of smartphones, televisions, and memory chips. He was convicted twice, once in 1996 and subsequently in 2008, for corruption and tax evasion charges, but was pardoned on both instances. In 2014, Lee was named the world’s 35th most powerful person and the most powerful Korean by Forbes’ list of world’s most powerful people along with his son, Lee Jae-yong. At the time of his death, the company was worth US$300billion, and with an estimated net worth of US$20billion per Bloomberg’s billionaire index, he was the richest person in South Korea.

Lee was the third son of Lee Byung-chul, the founder of Samsung group, which was set up as exporter of fruit and dried fish. He went on to get a degree in economics from Waseda University, a private university in Japan. He studied for a masters program in business from the George Washington University in Washington, D. C., but did not get a degrees. Lee joined the Samsung group in 1966 with the Tongyang Broadcasting Company, and later went on. to work for Samsung’s construction and trading company. He took over the chairmanship of the conglomerate on 24 December 1987, two weeks after the death of his father.