he Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) conducted a large-scale personnel reshuffle at the top on July 12 involving 1,600 of its officers and staff including the promotion of a former chauffeur to a branch manager in another one of the surprising and tradition-breaking personnel moves by President Cho Jun-hee.

The latest personnel reshuffle affected 13 percent of all officers and staff and were made based purely on performance results and not related to academic records and other personal connections. This was done to firmly set a new tradition for the bank’s personnel policies that only performance results count as far as promotions are concerned.

A truly eye-catching move was the promotion of Lee Chul-hee, 53, deputy manager of IBK’s Shindang-dong branch, who was promoted to branch manager, becoming the first employee to make branch manager after entering the bank as a chauffeur in 1983 and before then working as a pipe layer. He drove a car for the bank for seven years and worked his way up to deputy branch manager six months ago. He then was promoted to branch manager in the current personnel move. It has taken him almost 30 years to reach his current position.

Lee became a regular employee of the bank in 1998 as a pipe layer and worked for over a decade at the Shindang-dong branch, taking charge of the marketing for the branch for the Shindang-dong area.

His achievement included the elevation of a sub-branch in Shindang-dong to a full branch after he became the top man there.

Another notable personnel move involved the promotion of a former voluntary police officer, Kim Yong-sul, 50, to a section head in recognition of his record of attracting 5,000 new customers to the Duncheon-dong branch in Seoul, winning the New Customer King Award for four consecutive years. Another outstanding personnel move involved Section Head Cho Jeong-hee, 45, who won the Deposit King Award for six consecutive years, when he became a deputy branch manager six years faster than the bank’s personnel regulations. He was given credit for attracting a huge amount of deposits in the economically desolated neighborhoods.

Section Head Chin Haeng-gon, 34, of the Ulsan branch and Section Head Huh Jin-hyuk, 33, of the Gumdan Branch have been assigned to work at the bank’s Hong Kong branch for their first overseas assignments in recognition of their excellent abilities in marketing.

The IBK Economic Research Institute has now been put directly under the bank’s CEO. Additionally, Lee Dong-joo, 55, vice president in charge of the Credit Management Headquarters, has been named to head the institute. The bank plans to expand the institute to study policies for SMEs.

The bank also expanded the Busan-South Gyeongsang branch to include Ulsan as the Busan-Ulsan and South Gyeongsang Headquarters with Yoon Cho-kyung, 55, taking over the expanded branch after being promoted to vice president from headquarters manager.

Cho Hi-chul, 54, headquarters manager of the Kangseo-Jeju Regional Headquarters, was named to head the Credit Management Headquarters as vice president. Cho Yong-chan, 54, was named to head the IT Headquarters as vice president. Vice President Hwang Man-sub, 57, in charge of the IT Headquarters was named to head the Card Headquarters, while Vice President Chung Man-sob was transferred to head the IB Headquarters.