Samsung Electronics America (SEA) Chief Executive Officer and President Tim Baxter officially assumed the role of the CEO and President of Samsung Electronics North America (SENA), the local branch of the tech giant announced on Tuesday. Baxter formerly served as the Chief Operating Officer at SEA and was just promoted to a top management role in mid-May, with the executive now receiving another vote of confidence from the South Korean original equipment manufacturer (OEM). In a statement issued earlier this week, Samsung Electronics said that Baxter will continue leading SEA and still be fulfilling all of his previously assumed duties in regards to the company’s marketing endeavors and sales across a wide variety of products and services offered in the region. Under his new role, Baxter will be responsible not just for the United States but also the Canadian market.
Together with this change, SENA’s management is now set to be strengthened with the addition of one Young Hoon Eom who’s joining the division as the new Deputy Head. Eom is a long-term employee of Samsung, having previously served as the CEO and President of Samsung Electronics Europe. The Seoul-based consumer electronics manufacturer didn’t go into many details regarding its latest organizational change, save for saying that both of its new appointments are effective immediately. Some industry watchers believe that the latest management shifts at Samsung are just one of the company’s traditional annual changes that Samsung usually makes in an effort to prevent its organizational structure from going stale. Though the firm usually debuts such changes at the end of each calendar year, its 2016 schedule may have been delayed due to a high-profile political scandal in its home country that saw Samsung Group’s Vice Chairman and heir apparent Jay Y. Lee jailed and charged with a number of crimes including bribery and embezzlement of corporate funds.
The ordeal left the largest business conglomerate in the Far Eastern country without a true leader, with its Chairman Lee Kun-hee reportedly being in a coma since 2014. An update on the company’s efforts to bounce back from its recent troubles is expected to follow in the coming months.