Samsung hires governance specialist in renewed ESG push

Samsung Electronics has recently hired Daniel Oh, a corporate governance specialist who worked for Institutional Shareholder Services and BlackRock, as an executive vice president at its global investor relations team.

According to the tech giant’s business report Monday, Oh, 48, started working at Samsung in February, becoming the No. 2 man on the investor relations team.

Oh who studied economics at MIT has more than 19 years of experience in investor relations and corporate governance. He worked as lead corporate governance adviser at proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (2005-2013) and vice president of investment stewardship at asset manager BlackRock (2014-2016). Most recently, he served as vice president at consulting firm Morrow Sodali.

His joining comes as part of Samsung’s renewed efforts to bolster responsiveness to environmental, social and governance goals. Starting in 2025, listed firms here with 2 trillion won ($1.62 billion) or more in assets will face heightened scrutiny over their ESG efforts.

Samsung Group, the nation’s largest family-run conglomerate, is also poised to complete the succession plan for de facto leader Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, which could involve mergers and acquisitions, operational restructuring and proxy battles with activist investors.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)