SEOUL, October 08 (AJP) - Samsung Electronics expects to have achieved what no other technology company has managed over the last three months, earning more than $80 billion in operating profit.
SK hynix's $26.5 billion issue in July was the largest foreign ADR debut in U.S. history and Hyundai cars have long become a familiar presence on roads around the world.
Beyond their Korean origins, these corporate giants share another defining feature. Founding families remain at the center of businesses that have grown into global powers under successive generations.
But what comes next for the dynasties behind the brands?
Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee drew a line in 2020 when he pledged not to pass management control to his children.
“I will not hand over management rights to my children,” he said.
His only son has nevertheless become more visible. Lee Ji-ho, a Navy interpreter officer, appeared in photographs published by South Korea’s military newspaper last month interpreting at a meeting between senior Korean and U.S. naval officers.
Born in the United States, he relinquished U.S. citizenship to serve as a Korean officer.
His future remains open. Across Korea’s business families, however, one part of the younger generation’s upbringing has become almost routine — an overseas education.
A study released Wednesday by corporate research firm CEO Score found that nearly 94 percent of fourth- and fifth-generation members surveyed had studied abroad, compared with just 5.9 percent of first-generation founders.
The findings trace a striking transformation within the chaebol, South Korea’s family-controlled conglomerates. Some founders built industrial empires with little formal schooling. Their descendants increasingly begin university life in New York, California or other foreign destinations.
CEO Score examined 350 members of controlling families across 89 major business groups whose educational backgrounds could be verified. Overseas study experience rose from two of 34 founders to 76 of 112 second-generation members and 122 of 155 in the third generation.
Among the fourth and fifth generations, 46 of 49 had studied abroad.
The change concerns not only where they study, but when they leave. Of those 46 younger family members, 33 began their undergraduate education overseas. Earlier generations more commonly earned a Korean bachelor’s degree before heading abroad for an MBA or other postgraduate qualification.
Hyundai’s history makes the generational leap particularly vivid.
Founder Chung Ju-yung, born into a farming family in 1915, had only an elementary education before building an empire spanning construction, cars and ships. His son Chung Mong-koo attended Hanyang University in Seoul.
Grandson Euisun Chung, now Hyundai Motor Group’s executive chair, studied business administration at Korea University before earning an MBA at the University of San Francisco.
In three generations, the family’s educational journey stretched from an elementary classroom to business schools on both sides of the Pacific.
Samsung followed an international path much earlier, with Japan figuring prominently before American universities became the favored destination.
Founder Lee Byung-chul attended Waseda University in Tokyo in the 1930s but left without completing his degree. His son Lee Kun-hee also studied at Waseda before continuing his education in the United States.
Jay Y. Lee took a different route. He studied East Asian history at Seoul National University, earned a master’s degree at Japan’s Keio University and completed doctoral coursework at Harvard Business School without obtaining a doctorate.
At LG, former Chairman Koo Bon-moo attended Yonsei University in Seoul before completing his undergraduate education at Ashland University in Ohio and pursuing graduate studies at Cleveland State University. His successor, Koo Kwang-mo, earned his bachelor’s degree at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.
Together, their histories show how the educational starting point has shifted. Overseas study has increasingly become the foundation of a family member’s university education rather than a qualification added later.
Across the CEO Score sample, Columbia University was the most frequently attended foreign institution, with 22 family members, followed by New York University with 18, Cornell with 16, Stanford with 15 and Harvard with 14.
The figures span generations and include undergraduate and postgraduate study. Within Korea, Korea University led with 54, followed by Seoul National University with 50 and Yonsei University with 35.
Some foreign campuses have become recurring destinations within individual families.
Four fourth-generation GS family members completed Stanford MBA programs, while five members of the Doosan family attended MBA programs at NYU.
Cornell appears repeatedly in the Amorepacific family. Chairman Suh Kyung-bae’s elder daughter Suh Min-jung studied economics there, while her younger sister Suh Ho-jung studied hotel administration. Chung Hae-chan, the eldest son of Shinsegae’s Chung Yong-jin, also studied hotel administration at Cornell.
More in the younger members of the corporate dynasties bear ambitions beyond the C-suite.
Annie debuted with the group in 2025 and graduated from Columbia in May 2026 after studying art history and visual arts. Her education fits the family pattern but her career so far has taken her onto the stage.
That distinction leaves the next chapter of Korea’s corporate dynasties open.
The founders built businesses that reached beyond Korea. Their descendants are receiving an education that does the same, whether their ambitions lead them back to the family boardroom or elsewhere.
The founders left their descendants companies with global ambitions. For the younger generations, an international education now usually comes before the decision about what to do with that inheritance.
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