Chief of Samsung’s memory chip division Jun Young-hyun has been chosen as the new Chief Executive Officer of Samsung SDI, the Samsung Group-owned battery-making business announced on Tuesday. Jun is expected to officially assume his duties on March 24 following an approval during the company’s next shareholder meeting. It is understood that the vote during the shareholder meeting will be just a formality and that Jun will almost certainly take the reigns of Samsung SDI in late March. The 57-year-old will replace the former CEO Cho Nam-seong who recently resigned from Samsung SDI for personal reasons. Jun has a Ph.D. in electric engineering from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and has been employed by Samsung for many years, having joined the company in 2000. It is yet unclear who will replace Jun as the new head of Samsung Group’s memory chip business.
While Cho officially left Samsung SDI for personal reasons, his departure comes shortly after Samsung’s top management vowed to partially restructure the largest business conglomerate in South Korea following the Galaxy Note 7 debacle from last fall. Samsung SDI was directly responsible for the fact that numerous units of Samsung’s latest phablet were prone to catching fire and exploding, as revealed by the company’s report from January. Since then, Samsung Electronics and Samsung SDI committed significant resources to improving their manufacturing and quality assurance practices with the goal of avoiding a similar scenario in the future.
Previous reports from industry insiders indicated that Samsung Electronics may outsource the batteries for the upcoming Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus due to the fact that Samsung SDI still isn’t finished with updating its manufacturing processes. Regardless of whether those reports were accurate, Samsung SDI is expected to continue supplying batteries for future Samsung-made flagship devices. The Seoul-based tech giant is currently under significant pressure from both investors and consumers to make amends for the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco with its upcoming pair of high-end Android flagships that will be unveiled on March 29 at a special event in New York City. Both the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus are said to launch in the second half of April.