STI chooses Lee Woo-suk as new CEO

STI chose to appoint an executive from Samsung as their new CEO. It is considered as a move to strengthen their display business.

On February 25, STI had made a proposal to appoint Lee Woo-suk as their new CEO at the general meeting of shareholders, which is going to be held on March 22. Kim Jung-young, the former CEO of the company, will be promoted to vice chairman. Lee Woo-suk, who was appointed as the new CEO, listed Codi-M, which is a key partner of Samsung Electronics’ equipment subsidiary SEMES, on the KOSDAQ in 2015. Until joining STI, he was the vice chairman of MST.

He has served as an HR executive in Samsung for many years. He served as the senior manager/vice president of HR in the Memory Business Department of Samsung Electronics’ DS division (2002~2005), senior manager/senior vice president of HR in the Memory Business Department of Samsung Electronics’ DS division (2005~2009),  and the managing director of Samsung Everland’s personnel support department (2009~2012). Lee was recently indicted for attempting union busting during his time at Samsung Everland, and is currently on trial.

STI has been building their 2nd factory in Yongin (16,529㎡, since December 2018). STI invested 39 billion KRW in this construction. The factory is planned to operate from October 2019. The construction of the additional factory was to be prepared for the increased demand for semiconductors and display CCSS(Central Chemical Supply System), which is both the main business areas of STI.

However, as panel industries decreased investments on LCDs, STI’s display department had faced a decrease in sales ratio to total sales. In 2018, their display department took up 20% of the company’s total sales. This is also due to the fact that their semiconductor sales have increased drastically because of the booming memory market in the past few years. STI is currently determined to find a new growth engine. This is why they are planning to conduct additional R&D and production of OLED equipment in the Yongin 2nd factory.

Industry sources stated “STI is also equipped with display technologies other than LCD screen cleaning machines such as inkjet, etc. If additional OLED technology is developed, it is likely that CEO Lee will try to test the market and secure new clients.”