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Mar. 12. The cable battery won the highest honor at LG’s R&D awards. (provided by LG)

By Lee Hyung-sub, staff reporter

Kang Dal-mo, a department director at LG Chem, earned a promotion on Mar. 12 that made him a newly minted researcher, putting him at an executive pay level. Kang was born in 1975 and turns 39 this year. He graduated in mechanical and aviation engineering from Seoul National University before going on to earn master’s and doctoral degrees at the California Institute of Technology.

He joined the LG Chem Battery Institute in 2006 as a manager and in 2009 became a deputy general manager. By 2012, just three years later, he was a general manager. This year, he continued his race up the ladder as a newly minted researcher.

Kang manages exclusive battery cooling technology for LG Chem electric cars and energy storage systems (ESS). Patents earned under his leadership have helped propel the company to a winning run in the battery market.

Now, he stands as a symbol of the LG Group’s recent emphasis on the importance of R&D staff - and offering big rewards for results.

On Mar. 12, the LG Group held a briefing session on R&D results at the LG Chem Research Park in Daejeon. Eight directors supervising departments that won top honors and main prizes in the LG R&D awards were promoted to research staff at executive pay levels. Another five deputy directors were promoted to director.

Researchers are able to continue with R&D work in their area while earning high levels of pay.

In total, LG promoted 46 researchers to director level. Eleven of those tapped as researchers were born in the 1970s, putting them in their early forties or younger. They included Kim Jae-young, the 42-year-old chief of the LG Chem cable battery development team that won first prize; Hong Sun-wang, a 44-year-old LG Electronics senior fellow who won a main prize for solar-powered battery module development; and 43-year-old Kang Nae-gyu of LG Household & HealthCare, who won another main prize for developing functional aging prevention cosmetics.

The promotions may have come as a surprise, but LG says they were a reflection of Chairman Koo Bon-moo’s philosophy of “rewarding the technicians who contribute to making market-leading products.”

The group has been stepping up compensation accordingly: since last year, it has made sure to promote the heads of teams that won major honors at its R&D awards.

While conferring the team awards, Koo declared, “If we’re going to produce products the consumers want, we need original core technology. I hope each of our researchers works with a sense of pride in making a new start toward leading the market.”

The 46 new researcher and expert committee member appointments on Mar. 12 included R&D and professional staff from a range of affiliates, among them LG Electronics, LG Display, LG Chem, and LG Household & HealthCare. Most were R&D staffers in leading product and core component development, as well as future growth areas like next-generation mobile technology, electric car batteries, and energy solutions.

LG Electronics also promoted two foreign employees, a Japanese sound specialist and a Russia Research Institute software specialist.

Another LG system is aimed at rewarding the contributions of production staff, with production line workers holding high-school diplomas eligible for positions at executive-level pay if they meet certain criteria, such as improving production processes with creative ideas.

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