Chung Yong-jin

Chairman of Shinsegae Group. A business leader heading E-Mart, Shinsegae Department Store, Starbucks Korea, and others, known for his active social media communication.

Chung Yong-jin (정용진)

Overview

Chung Yong-jin is a South Korean businessman and the chairman of Shinsegae Group (신세계그룹). He leads a group encompassing retail, food and beverage, and online businesses, including E-Mart (이마트), Shinsegae Department Store (신세계백화점), Starbucks Korea (스타벅스코리아), and SSG.COM. As the maternal grandson of Lee Byung-chul, founder of Samsung Group, and the eldest son of Lee Myung-hee, honorary chairman of Shinsegae Group, he is counted among the representative third-generation business leaders of Korea's conglomerates.

Key Details

Birth and Upbringing

Chung Yong-jin was born in 1968 to Lee Myung-hee and Chung Jae-eun. His maternal grandfather was Lee Byung-chul, founder of Samsung Group, and his mother Lee Myung-hee, the eldest daughter of the Samsung family, led the group after Shinsegae was separated from Samsung in 1997. Chung graduated from Gyeongbok Middle School and Gyeongbok High School, and then majored in economics at Brown University in the United States.

Business Career

He began his management training by joining Shinsegae in 1993. After serving as planning director of Shinsegae Department Store in 1998, he was promoted to vice president of Shinsegae in 2006 and to vice chairman in 2010, stepping to the forefront of the group's actual management. In May 2020, following the retirement of his mother, chairman Lee Myung-hee, he took office as chairman of Shinsegae Group. Since taking office, he has put forward "strengthening competitiveness in the core business" and "digital transformation" as core strategies.

Major Affiliates

Shinsegae Group is a corporate group representing Korea's retail industry. E-Mart is the No. 1 operator of large discount stores in Korea, and Shinsegae Department Store shows strength in the luxury and premium market through its Gangnam branch and main branch, among others. In 2014, it acquired a stake in Starbucks Korea, entering the coffee business, and in 2021 it acquired eBay Korea (now Gmarket, G마켓), expanding its online commerce capabilities. SSG.COM is the group's integrated online shopping platform.

Communication Style and Image

Chung Yong-jin is a figure notable among conglomerate heads for his use of social media. Through Instagram and X (formerly Twitter), he directly posts about new product promotions, management philosophy, and daily life, building an image as a "communicating chairman." He is evaluated as broadening his points of contact with younger generations while also achieving brand marketing effects. However, some of his remarks have also sparked controversy. He is also known as an enthusiast of alcoholic beverages such as wine and whisky, and related content often becomes a hot topic.

Family

In 2000, he married Han Ji-hee, a former ballerina and actress, and they have children.

Latest Trends

In 2024–2025, Shinsegae Group embarked on restructuring in response to challenges such as sluggish performance and deficits in its online business. It accelerated an "omnichannel" strategy combining online and offline channels through the integration of E-Mart and SSG.COM, while also pursuing improvement of its financial structure, including pushing for the sale of part of its stake in Starbucks Korea. Chairman Chung Yong-jin returned to the front lines of management in 2024, directly overseeing organizational renewal and cost efficiency, and is focusing on securing future competitiveness through the introduction of AI-based retail services, strengthening private brands (PB), and logistics automation. Amid a consumption slump across the retail industry and the offensive of Chinese e-commerce players (AliExpress and Temu), Shinsegae's response strategy is drawing attention, and Chung Yong-jin's leadership and the succession structure remain major points of interest in the business world.