The Most Famous

BUSINESSPEOPLE from South Korea

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This page contains a list of the greatest South Korean Businesspeople. The pantheon dataset contains 847 Businesspeople, 6 of which were born in South Korea. This makes South Korea the birth place of the 19th most number of Businesspeople behind Denmark, and Israel.

Top 6

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary South Korean Businesspeople of all time. This list of famous South Korean Businesspeople is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity.

Photo of Lee Byung-chul

1. Lee Byung-chul (1910 - 1987)

With an HPI of 75.89, Lee Byung-chul is the most famous South Korean Businessperson.  His biography has been translated into 36 different languages on wikipedia.

Lee Byung-chul (Korean: 이병철; 12 February 1910 – 19 November 1987) was a South Korean businessman who founded the Samsung Group, the country's largest chaebol (conglomerate). Lee founded Samsung in 1938, at the age of 28. He is recognized as the most successful business magnate in South Korea's history.

Photo of Lee Kun-hee

2. Lee Kun-hee (1942 - 2020)

With an HPI of 67.05, Lee Kun-hee is the 2nd most famous South Korean Businessperson.  His biography has been translated into 29 different languages.

Lee Kun-hee (Korean: 이건희; 9 January 1942 – 25 October 2020) was a South Korean businessman who served as the chairman of Samsung from 1987 to 2008 and from 2010 to his death in 2020. He is also credited with the transformation of Samsung to one of the world's largest business entities that engages in semiconductors, smartphones, electronics, shipbuilding, construction, and other businesses. Since Lee became the chairman of Samsung, the company became the world's largest manufacturer of smartphones, memory chips, and appliances. He was the third son of Samsung founder Lee Byung-chul. With an estimated net worth of US$21 billion at the time of his death, he was the richest person in South Korea, a position that he had held since 2007. He was convicted twice, once in 1996 and subsequently in 2008, for corruption and tax evasion charges, but was pardoned on both instances. In 2014, Lee was named the world's 35th most powerful person and the most powerful Korean by Forbes's list of the world's most powerful people along with his son, Lee Jae-yong.

Photo of Sung Jae-gi

3. Sung Jae-gi (1967 - 2013)

With an HPI of 65.30, Sung Jae-gi is the 3rd most famous South Korean Businessperson.  His biography has been translated into 186 different languages.

Sung Jae-gi (Korean: 성재기; [səːŋ dʑɛgi]; September 11, 1967 – July 26, 2013) was a South Korean men's rights activist. Sung was the leader of various masculinist and anti-feminist organizations, including the Association of Anti-Feminism and Male Liberation, Association for the Abolition of the Ministry of Women, and Man of Korea. Sung also ran a shelter for homeless men, male victims of violent crime, teenage runaways, and gay and transgender men. Near the end of his life Sung was reportedly up to ₩100 million in debt. On July 25, 2013 he posted on the Man of Korea website his intention to commit suicide. The next day, Sung jumped from the Mapo Bridge in Seoul. His body was found four days later.

Photo of Lee Jae-yong

4. Lee Jae-yong (b. 1969)

With an HPI of 62.63, Lee Jae-yong is the 4th most famous South Korean Businessperson.  His biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Lee Jae-yong (Korean: 이재용; born June 23, 1968) is a South Korean business executive who has served as the executive chairman of Samsung Electronics since October 2022. He is the only son of Lee Kun-hee and Hong Ra-hee. As of December 2024, Lee has an estimated net worth of US$8.2 billion, making him the richest person in the country.

Photo of Shin Kyuk-ho

5. Shin Kyuk-ho (1921 - 2020)

With an HPI of 62.62, Shin Kyuk-ho is the 5th most famous South Korean Businessperson.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Shin Kyuk-ho (Korean: 신격호; 3 November 1921 – 19 January 2020), known in Japan as Shigemitsu Takeo (重光 武雄), was a Zainichi Korean businessman known for being the founder of the South Korean-Japanese conglomerate Lotte Corporation (Group), now one of the largest chaebols in South Korea. During the bubble economy of Japan from the 1980s to the 1990s, he became the fourth wealthiest person in the world according to American business magazine Forbes in 1988, setting the record for the greatest wealth ever achieved by a Korean. Driven by a lifelong desire to contribute to his homeland, South Korea (Republic of Korea), his dream of the Lotte World Tower, the sixth tallest building in the world and the highest in the Korean peninsula, was realized in 2016, and he died in 2020.

Photo of Choi Soon-sil

6. Choi Soon-sil (b. 1956)

With an HPI of 58.54, Choi Soon-sil is the 6th most famous South Korean Businessperson.  Her biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Choi Soon-sil (Korean: 최순실; pronounced [t͡ɕʰø.sun.ɕil]; born June 23, 1956) is a South Korean businesswoman known primarily for her involvement in the 2016 South Korean political scandal, stemming from her influence over the 11th President of South Korea, Park Geun-hye. In 2018, a court sentenced Choi to 20 years in prison on corruption charges. Due to Choi's concurrent involvement in her father's religious cult, reporting media have called her "South Korea's Rasputin", in reference to Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin.

People

Pantheon has 6 people classified as South Korean businesspeople born between 1910 and 1969. Of these 6, 2 (33.33%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living South Korean businesspeople include Lee Jae-yong, and Choi Soon-sil. The most famous deceased South Korean businesspeople include Lee Byung-chul, Lee Kun-hee, and Sung Jae-gi. As of April 2024, 6 new South Korean businesspeople have been added to Pantheon including Lee Byung-chul, Lee Kun-hee, and Sung Jae-gi.

Living South Korean Businesspeople

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Deceased South Korean Businesspeople

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Newly Added South Korean Businesspeople (2024)

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Overlapping Lives

Which Businesspeople were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 4 most globally memorable Businesspeople since 1700.