LG Electronics has announced a shakeup in leadership and how the company is run that includes naming a new president and CEO, as well as a new CTO, and launching a separate company under the LG umbrella to handle business to business operations. The new president and CEO is Hwang Jeong-hwan, and his predecessor, Juno Cho, will be ascending to a position outside of LG Electronics, working instead within the overarching LG company. The new CTO, meanwhile, is Dr. Park Il-pyung, who currently serves as the head of the company’s Software Center. His predecessor, Dr. Skott Ahn, will be following Juno Cho upward to the main LG company. Finally, appliance marketing vice president Han Chang-hee will become the worldwide marketing chief for all of LG, and global marketing lead Brian Na will ascend to the post of president of LG’s operations in Western Europe.
The business to business arm of LG will now be its own company, headed up by LG India head and Business Solutions leader Kwon Soon-hwang. The company will be responsible for any and all product sales occurring on a business-to-business basis, including energy, display, and other solutions. LG rounded out the announcement by outing the upcoming Convergence Business Development Center, a unified front in which the entire company and all of its arms will come together with a focus on artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, along with device to device connectivity solutions.
This shakeup comes amid a number of transitions toward innovative technologies in LG’s research. The company has been embracing new display technologies like curved and semi-transparent OLED displays, as well as new types of user interfaces and experiences, such as AR, VR, and AI. These changes seem poised to send LG, and LG Electronics in particular, down a new path where the company will look for ways to further embrace new technologies to keep pace with large competitors like Samsung and HTC. It bears mentioning that LG’s well-known smartphone efforts fall under LG Electronics, which means that these executive shuffles could mean that the company will begin approaching the mobile space in new ways, as well.