Samsung Electronics on Tuesday carried out its largest executive promotion round in recent years, elevating a wave of rising leaders in AI, robotics and advanced chips as the tech giant accelerates a generational shift for the AI era.
In its annual reshuffle, Samsung promoted 161 employees to executive positions — a sharp increase from 143 in 2023 and 137 in 2024 — signaling a pivot toward younger, next-generation leadership capable of steering the tech giant through intensifying global competition.
“This year’s promotions reflect our commitment to stay ahead of rapid industrial changes and secure leadership in AI, robotics and semiconductors,” the company said. “The executives promoted have delivered measurable results across core businesses.”
The new lineup includes 51 vice presidents, 93 executive directors and 16 master engineers. After peaking at 214 in 2021, promotions had steadily declined, but this year marks a strong rebound.
Among the standout promotions is Lee Yoon-soo, 50, newly appointed head of data intelligence at Samsung Research. Lee led the rollout of Samsung’s personalized data platform across Galaxy products and oversaw GPU optimization for AI services.
Also promoted to vice president is Lee Sung-jin, who spearheaded large language model–based generative AI and Samsung’s conversational AI platforms within the Mobile eXperience division.
In robotics, 41-year-old software specialist Choi Ko-eun was promoted to executive director for contributions to Samsung’s autonomous navigation and real-time control systems.
Samsung also elevated 45-year-old Kwon Jung-hyun to vice president at Samsung Research for advancing key robot perception and manipulation technologies powered by AI.
Kang Min-seok, head of mobile product planning, was named vice president after driving the world’s first Galaxy AI smartphone and shaping the ultraslim concepts behind the upcoming Galaxy S25 Edge, Fold 7 and Flip 7.
In the semiconductor division, Hong Hee-il was promoted to vice president for advancing DRAM performance analysis and improving yield and reliability in high-bandwidth memory and DDR5 chips.
Samsung emphasized that it is “boldly promoting young talent with exceptional expertise.”
The number of vice presidents in their 40s rose to 11 from eight last year. Several rising stars in their 30s also moved into senior roles. Kim Chul-min, 39, was recognized for kernel memory optimization and device performance engineering in the MX division, while Lee Kang-wook, 39, was promoted for leading foundation model development in language and code AI at Samsung Research.
The lone foreign national promoted this year, Jacob Zhu, will take over as vice president leading China Sales for Samsung’s Device Solutions division. He has played a key role in expanding Samsung’s semiconductor footprint in the Chinese market.
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