Woori Investment and Securities Co. named Kim Won-kyu, managing director, as its new president on June 12, making him the first CEO promoted from within, the company said June on 13.

The new president takes over from former-President Hwang Sung-ho who resigned recently. Kim’s appointment is based on the company’s personnel policy to promote its CEOs from within the company, giving high priority to professionalism in its personnel decisions, the company said.

Business sources speculated that the new CEO is considered to be qualified to manage the company in line with Chairman Lee Soon-woo of the Woori Financial Group’s management strategy to speed up the group’s privatization and the responsible management of its affiliates. 

Kim, who hails from Daegu and spent nearly three decades with the same company, said he will do his best to run the company as called for by the group’s management strategy for speedy privatization. He has held various important positions at the company since 1985 when he joined LG Investment and Securities, which was merged with Woori Investment and Securities in 2005, including serving as the manager of the Pohang branch, director for the Gangnam District Office in Seoul, standing director for the Pension Management Operation, and deputy representative of the Wealth Management Division.

He was credited with having successfully managed the Octo, an integrated asset management brand that he created for the company, boosting the premium asset management operation.

In 2011, he was also credited with successfully managing the company’s takeover of the private banking unit from Merrill Lynch, strengthening the company’s manpower for asset management and supplementing the company’s high asset value.

Officials of the company said the new CEO has been recognized as highly professional in many areas of securities and financial businesses and won high regards for his personality among officers and staff he worked with at the company, therefore, the right person to run the company during this crucial period.

Playing a leading role in the development of the Korean capital markets over the last 40 years, Woori Investment and Securities Co. is strengthening its fundamentals to grow into a premiere financial investment institution by solidifying its market leadership in its core business areas. 

Through an IB-type business model based on IB, trading, and wealth management, coupled with an advanced risk management system, Woori Investment & Securities pursues stable growth. Close cooperation with its Woori Financial Group affiliates has created dynamic synergies that have made possible the rapid expansion of its client base and assets under management. As of the end of December 2010, total retail clients numbered 652,858, and total assets under management amounted to 140 trillion won. In addition, the company is expanding its international IB market presence from its business base in Singapore, making inroads into brokerage markets in Vietnam, Indonesia, and other Southeast Asian countries, and extending business networks in India and the Middle East. 

In February 2009, a sweeping Capital Market Act took effect in Korea. Seeing the new law as a great opportunity for further growth in the domestic capital markets, Woori Investment and Securities Co. is strengthening its core businesses and global network to become Asia’s leading investment institution. 

Since becoming a part of Woori Financial Group in 2005, the company has established itself as one of the best securities companies in the country with a competitive edge in investment banking (IB), trading, and asset management.