Chairman Lim Young-rok of KB Financial Group.

   Chairman Lim Young-rok of the KB Financial Group appointed Vice President Yoon Woong-won as the chief financial officer, Vice President Kim Yong-soo as the chief public relations officer, and Vice President Lee Min-ho as the chief credit officer of the financial group.

   In the meantime, Kookmin Bank went through reorganization of its operational structure on July 23 to cope with uncertainty in management and the financial market environment to maintain its growth, the bank said.

The restructuring reduced the number of 10 groups, 15 headquarters and 57 departments including one office to 17 headquarters, 57 departments and two offices with the number of managers of headquarters slimmed from 25 to 17. This is aimed at boosting the internal operation’s performance and management results through speedy decision-making to cope with changes in the financial market, the bank said.

The bank got rid of the group system, retaining only the headquarters and departments and two offices in the restructuring in order to be more operation-centered, dividing up the 10 groups into two based on function — the operation planning headquarters and the operation promotion headquarters. This is intended to make the bank’s operation more efficient with the two operation headquarters competing hard while at the same time complementing each other in operation, which will strengthen the bank’s retail banking and thus boost the productivity of the bank as a financial entity, the bank said.

The reorganization also was intended to systemize the asset management quality to better cope with the rising customers’ needs by generating synergy among similar operation units and the merger of the wealth management department and the private banking operation department to improve the bank’s ability to manage customers’ wealth.

The global operation headquarters has been merged with the strategic operation headquarters so it can engage in rational decision making and map out a more effective and systematic long-term strategy for overseas operations. At the end, the bank decided to have vice presidents, managing directors, and standing directors run the headquarters as effectively as they can in terms of utilization of manpower and flexibility.

(from left) Vice President Yoon Woong-won of the KB Financial Group; Vice President Kim Yong-soo of the

 KB Financial Group; Vice President Lee Min-ho of the KB Financial Group.(photos: KB Financial Group)

The bank, in follow-up to the reorganization, conducted a personnel shake-up and named Hong Wan-ki, Vice President in charge of the Operation Planning Headquarters; Vice President Lee Hong as the head of the Corporate Finance Headquarters; Vice President Baek In-ki in charge of the Business Promotion Headquarters; Vice President Park Ji-woo as the head of the Customer Satisfaction Headquarters; Vice President Oh Hyun-chul as the head of the Credit Headquarters; and Vice President Lim Byung-soo in charge of the Risk Management Headquarters. Vice President Lee Hun has been retained as the head of the 2nd Business Promotion Headquarters.