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Kwon Oh-kap |
Hyundai Oilbank CEO Kwon Oh-gap held a quiet funeral for his mother last weekend without the knowledge of anyone other than close relatives, company officials said Thursday.
He even did not notify the company of his mother’s death in an apparently considerate move not to bother company staff, the officials said.
Kwon informed the company that he would be absent for a few days for “personal reasons” after his 100-year-old mother passed away on Friday. Hyundai Oilbank employees had no idea the CEO’s mother had died because the news was not announced on the company’s intranet.
To conceal the news, Kwon even set up the mortuary at his mother’s house in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, instead of at a funeral hall at a big hospital.
“I believed it was what a son should do, to have his old mother pass away in peace,” Kwon was quoted as saying on Monday at a company meeting, where he finally revealed the news of his mother’s death.
Kwon has repeatedly said that his mother’s heartfelt education was the root of his success.
By Park Min-young (
claire@heraldcorp.com)
