Lotte seeks more female managers

Lotte Group, a leading South Korean retail giant, vowed Thursday to nurture its female leaders to provide equal opportunities in its workforce.

Group chairman Shin Dong-bin said in a forum that his conglomerate would increase female leaders to 30 percent of managers by 2020 from the current rate of 11 percent.

“The group expects to have the first female CEO by 2020,” the chairman said, adding the group would continue to invest in building a family-friendly working environment.

“More female talents are necessary for Lotte’s affirmative action plan to provide equal opportunities for members of minority groups,’’ Shin said during the fourth Way of Women, an internal annual event for female employees.

About 500 female staff and executives in the group and its affiliated firms joined the event and shared their experiences and views for the development of female leaders.

The conglomerate has adopted women-friendly policies, such as flexible working hours and support for career building.

In its efforts to increase female talents, the company has continued to allocate 40 percent of annual job openings to women for the past few years, which has so far raised the rate of female managers to 11 percent from 1 percent in 2005.

Lotte announced the new policy amid no signs of easing feuds among owner family members, including chairman Shin, over control of the conglomerate.

Lotte said its Japanese shareholders support the current leadership despite the ongoing succession feud, in an effort to clear up uncertainties surrounding the preparation for listing its hotel unit.

The listing of Hotel Lotte is one of the reform pledges that chairman Shin has made to assuage public disgust over a bitter family feud over control of the retail-focused conglomerate, which has sprawling business interests both in South Korea and Japan.

The Korea Exchange, South Korea’s main bourse in charge of reviewing its initial public offering application, has demanded Lotte prove whether its corporate governance structure is stable enough to proceed with the current process.

In response, Lotte said it has submitted a document showing that 60 percent of Lotte Holdings’ shareholders support the current leadership. Japan-based Lotte Holdings is the largest shareholder of Hotel Lotte with a 19.1 percent stake.

“The Hotel Lotte IPO is expected to proceed without delay as major concerns have been cleared up,” a senior Lotte official said.

“We will make efforts to complete its listing by the first half of next year.”

The latest move came as Lotte has been mired in a leadership dispute between the group founder’s two sons ― Shin Dong-joo and Shin Dong-bin ― since last summer.

The two sons had respectively controlled the company’s operations in Japan and Korea until earlier this year.

By Seo Jee-yeon & news reports 

(jyseo@heraldcorp.com)