🇰🇷 South Korea: Death of a Salesman

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🎖️ Losing a Company Man

Han Jong-hee, Samsung Electronics’s co-CEO and Vice Chairman passed away on Tuesday at the age of 63. He had suffered a heart attack and was taken to the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, but was unfortunately pronounced dead later. He had spent over three decades in Samsung’s TV division, helping it become the largest global player in the last 20 years.

Obituaries followed in the South Korean media, specifically under their business sections. For this issue of Signpost, we will take a look at how he was remembered in two of South Korea’s largest English language news media — The Korea Herald and The Korea Times.

THE KOREA HERALD: Han Jong-hee, architect of Samsung’s TV leadership, dies at 63 [link]

📢 What The Korea Herald is saying
Understandably, most of the obituary outlines the professional career of Han Jong-hee, along with a lot of coverage of his respect and admiration from within the industry. He is portrayed as a truly loyal and diligent Samsung man.

1. 📸 Visuals

Only one image is used in the article, which sits at the top. In it, we see Han Jong-hee standing behind a grey podium on which the Samsung logo is displayed, and behind him is a brown, faux wooden wall (at least I think it’s faux). He’s dressed in a dark blue-ish grey suit, a navy blue tie, and a white shirt. To his left is part of a teleprompter, and he is speaking into two thin, long microphones aimed at his mouth. He looks like he’s mid-sentence, and it’s understood that he’s speaking at a company event.

2. ✍🏽 Words

The article headline makes clear his greatest achievement — he is labelled the ‘architect of Samsung’s TV leadership’. His relatively young age at the time of his death (‘63’) is also mentioned in the headline. The first sentence in the article reiterates these details, including his title of Vice Chairman. The second paragraph provides some more detail of what happened, including that he ‘collapsed from cardiac arrest while resting over the weekend’. Understandably, his passing has left Samsung and the industry ‘in shock and sorrow’, especially as the article explains that he was recently in China on business and also led a shareholder meeting last week.

Following this we get a quote from a vaguely described ‘industry official’ in tribute. His key stats are now mentioned — his ‘more than 30 years’ in Samsung’s TV division, how he was the ‘driving force’ to Samsung dominating the global market in TVs, leading to him helping the division ‘secure the No. 1 position in revenue for 19 consecutive years, starting in 2005’.

From here we get his professional career summary, including mentions of his alma mater and degree (electronic engineering from Inha University), his joining Samsung in 1988, and his progress through the various ranks over time. He was eventually ‘named co-chief executive officer of Samsung Electronics in 2022’, and was also leading their Quality Innovation Committee in 2023.

His personal attributes are mentioned next. There is mention of his ‘active yet humble leadership’, his ‘approachable management style’, and his ‘innovative spirit’. He was recently bestowed with numerous awards, and was a spokesperson for the company at CES. This is followed by a very humble quote from the man himself, taken from the latest shareholder meeting that he was leading.

The article ends with two updates — one: Samsung has already announced a new CEO of their electronics division, and two: the Chairman of Samsung Electronics, who is the grandson of the founder of the company, is busy in China on ‘previously scheduled engagements’ and is ‘unable to return to Korea immediately’.

❓ What it means
By all accounts, the article is a respectful and positive obituary for the man. And from what I’ve read on other platforms, deservedly so. But it also points to a challenge for the obituary writers — there’s no mention of any specific achievement of his during his time at Samsung. He’s been ‘widely recognised’ as the reason Samsung’s TVs are number one in the world, but there’s no mention of what exactly he did to achieve this. Same with this laundry list of titles, designations, and awards. For all his time and effort spent building and growing the company, he remains an employee.

This is further emphasised by the fact that the Lee family scion couldn’t be bothered to return to the country, even though the CEO of arguably the most publicly relevant and important division of his family business passed suddenly.

⚠️ Why it matters
Founders, athletes, academics, inventors, religious leaders, political leaders, artists, public figures… these are all the people for whom it is easy to write obituaries. They usually have very definite, very obvious professional and personal milestones that the obituary writer can seamlessly weave into a tapestry of their life story, engaging readers and generating buzz.

For salaried employees? Unless they have done something truly individual and unique during their tenure, it’s hard. It’s the same challenge that people have when preparing their CV. All achievements are attributed to a ‘team’, and the main recipient of any goodwill and income boost is the ‘company’. But then, why should they complain? They’re getting a salary to do their job.

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THE KOREA TIMES: Samsung Electronics CEO Han Jong-hee dies of heart attack [link]

📢 What The Korea Times is saying
The article restates much of what was said in The Korea Herald, but adds in more details regarding Han Jong-hee’s journey at Samsung, his particular vision, and some more official tributes from Samsung and, pleasantly, from Samsung’s key Korean competitor LG.

1. 📸 Visuals

Three visuals assist this article. Let’s start from the top and go downwards.

Headlining the article is a photo of Han Jong-hee from the recent company shareholder meeting on 19th March. He is sitting in an audience, with his head and eyeline slightly raised, indicating that he’s watching somebody or something on a stage ahead of him. He is dressed in a navy blue suit with a white shirt and a navy blue tie. He looks relaxed and composed.

Further down, is another photo of him from this year, where he is delivering his keynote speech at CES 2025 in Las Vegas on 6th January. Here he is the one on stage, standing in front of a massive Samsung branded screen, peppered with different images of Samsung products (a TV, a folding phone, a smartwatch, and few other devices not clearly shown), with the words ‘Home AI’ brandished across the screen. He is dressed in a dark grey blazer, with black trousers and a black shirt. He wears no tie, but instead has a hands-free microphone attached to his face. He is smiling, his arms are open, his palms are facing upwards, almost as if he were praying. He is in his element.

Finally, at the end of the article is the almost passport-like photo of the new Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman and CEO Jun Young-hyun. In the photo, he wears a dark suit, a white shirt, a blue patterned tie, and a neutral expression against a stark white background.

2. ✍🏽 Words

I’m going to specifically call out the differences between this article and the one in The Korea Herald to avoid unnecessary repetition.

First, the headline clearly mentions that Han Jong-hee ‘dies of a heart attack’. The article proper also include the detail that he was subsequently ‘taken to Samsung Medical Center’. It further specifies his ‘busy schedule in recent weeks’, including his visit to Shanghai for an expo and local client meetings, and that he was expected to launch the company’s new ‘AI-embedded household appliances’ this week. The article then mentions that the company has ‘selected another executive’ to speak at the event instead.

Here, again, it is mentioned that while his funeral will run till Thursday (27th March), the Samsung chairman will not attend because ‘he is in China’.

There is a lot of detail in the following paragraphs regarding his journey at Samsung, including how after he became CEO, he ‘set AI as the company’s direction for sustainable growth’, and how he recognised ‘medical technology, robotics, automotive components, and eco-friendly air conditioning’ as the sectors where future growth would occur for the company.

The article also mentions that he ‘apologised to shareholders’ in the recent shareholder meeting because of the ‘sluggish stock price’ and ‘concerns’ around Samsung’s cutting-edge legacy and competitiveness. Following a few more statements of tribute from Samsung, the article mentions how ‘industry officials’ remember him as someone who was ‘far from being flashy but always finishes his job’. Finally, a short statement from LG Electronics is mentioned in his tribute.

❓ What it means
We learn a bit more about Han in this article, especially his vision for where he expected to take the company, along with his humble nature as referenced by his apology to shareholders. However, as with the article in The Korea Herald, there is a yawning gap in his resume from when he joins Samsung in 1988 to when he becomes the display division’s president in 2017. One wonder what he did for so many years, especially as the article celebrates Samsung becoming the world’s largest TV manufacturer in 2006, 11 years before he became division president. In fact, most of his major titles have come from 2017 onwards, an indication that he was finally peaking in his career.

Despite his long tenure and senior position, he still couldn’t get a visit from the Chairman at his funeral, nor did the company delay the announcement of Samsung’s new AI-household appliances. The AI-embedded show must go on.

⚠️ Why it matters
It’s unlikely that a person of his ranking and tenure would be remembered poorly. If anything, it would reflect badly on everybody else, especially since this is the first time I’m even hearing about this man. But while Samsung’s royal founding family continue to be embroiled in corruption charges, the rank-and-file workers, however senior they may be as is the case with Han, apologise for slowing stock prices. It’s in moments like these that you see the power dynamics in our capitalist society at full show.

WHAT’S GOING ON? 

🏭 Assembly line of executives

There is a line in Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens (a book which I could not finish) where he says that while history was being written by a handful of people, most of humanity was spending their time tilling the fields, unknown and unseen. And that seems to be the case even when you are the CEO of a major and consequential company.

Ultimately, obituary writers can only write what has happened. Even if they’d like to zhuzh up somebody’s life, the most they can do in this scenario is to be polite, pleasant, and generally inoffensive. Which is what both news media have done in this case.

And while we will remind ourselves that at least Han got some coverage in the media, even in death, while being handsomely remunerated for his work at Samsung (at least that’s the assumption), were we in his situation, would we be upset at having our boss not attend our funeral? Would we be insulted at having us replaced unceremoniously at a company event? Or would we accept that this is the price for a good job?

The truth, as always, is somewhere in between.
Read widely. Question thoroughly. Decide accordingly.

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Was this forwarded to you? Signpost is a free weekly newsletter analysing what the media says, what it means, and why it matters. It’s free to subscribe. Alternatively, you can add me on LinkedIn.