SK Group (034730.KS) held a ceremony marking its 73rd anniversary on Tuesday at Seonhyewon, the former residence of the late founding chairman Choi Jong-kun, in Jongno-gu, Seoul.
The private "Memorial Day" event, which began at 11 a.m., was attended by SK Group Chairman Tae-won Choi, SK SUPEX Council Chairman (Vice Chairman) Choi Chang-won, SK hynix (000660.KS) CEO Kwak Noh-jung, and approximately 40 other senior executives from major group affiliates, along with members of the founding family.
Attendees honored the founding and late chairmen in a quiet and solemn atmosphere, reflecting on the fundamental principles of management. Over a luncheon that followed, they reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening core competitiveness based on the SK Group's founding spirit. With the business environment growing increasingly challenging due to persistent domestic and external uncertainties — including high inflation, a weak won, and the Middle East conflict — the group plans to focus on structural reform and disciplined management rooted in the philosophies of its founding and late chairmen.
The late founding chairman Choi Jong-kun frequently stated during his lifetime that "the company's development is the nation's development," expressing his firm belief that the efforts of his generation would bring prosperity to future generations. He also encouraged employees who built the "Miracle on the Han River" from poverty, saying, "There is no obstacle that our wisdom and courage cannot overcome."
Late chairman Choi Jong-hyun, who carried on the legacy of his elder brother, the founding chairman, combined Western rational management theory with Eastern human-centered philosophy in the 1970s to establish SKMS (SK Management System), the group's proprietary management framework. His famous saying — "First, people; second, people; third, people" — is regarded as one of the business community's most iconic philosophies on talent management and laid the foundation for SK Group's distinctive corporate culture.
The management philosophies of both chairmen have been carried on by current Chairman Tae-won Choi. When he was named chairman of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 2021, he said, "I will think about what I can do for the national economy." He has also devoted himself to global economic cooperation, serving as chair of the APEC CEO Summit in October last year.
SK Group started as Sunkyung Textiles on April 8, 1953, and has grown into a global conglomerate by adding new growth engines across decades — energy and chemicals in the 1980s, information and telecommunications in the 1990s, semiconductors in the 2010s, and most recently batteries and biopharmaceuticals. The group's total assets swelled to 362.96 trillion won as of the end of 2024.