The technology industry has just lost one of its most important personalities. The chairman of the LG Group, Koo Bon-moo, died at 73 years after fighting brain diseases since 2017. As is common among the giants of South Korean corporations, his son (top executive at LG Electronics, Koo Kwang-mo) should take the reins.
Koo Bon-moo was the third generation of LG's founding family, but was widely credited for turning the company into the influential technology giant it is today.
He became president in 1995, when LG was called Lucky Goldstar and the entire company was happy to earn 30 trillions of dollars in revenue (about 27 billion if it had made the money today). In the following years, however, he committed himself to both international expansion and displays (particularly LCDs) and batteries ions of lithium that became crucial as smartphones, flat-panel TVs and PCs took off. Go forward until 2018 and LG is achieving a record performance, although its mobile division is not as successful as predicted.
Did he have no problems during his tenure?
This is not to say that Koo Bon-Moo's term was positive. The family connection proved to be problematic in addition to the typical complaints about nepotism, prosecutors recently stormed the offices of the LG Group while investigating allegations of tax evasion by family members. And while LG is much larger than it used to be, it often remained in the shadow of its arch rival Samsung, with only a few areas (such as OLED TVs) where it stands out clearly. With that said, it is not certain that LG would be so great without the help of Koo Bon-moo.
O future of the company probably will not be at risk, whatever your opinion about the late president. LG is financially stable, and Koo Kwang-mo is no stranger to the executive leadership or to the various divisions of the company (including home appliances, home entertainment, and overall strategy). For now, he just needs to focus on keeping the corporate ship afloat.
