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A study has found that over half of chaebol offspring have graduated from overseas universities

Over half of the chaebol offspring currently involved in management graduated from overseas universities, while around one in four has a career history including employment at a consultancy, a study shows.

The management performance assessment firm CEO Score released findings on July 4 from an investigation of the 157 children of owner families for South Korea’s top 100 business groups who are currently involved in management. According to data on the offspring for whom educational history (114) and career history (126) could be verified, 61 received a bachelor’s degree from an overseas university, while 30 had a career history of working for a consulting company.

The most commonly attended universities were Boston University for undergraduate degrees and Stanford University for master’s degrees. Eighty-eight percent of master’s degrees for chaebol offspring were earned overseas. A total of 53 (46.5 percent) had graduated from South Korean universities – fewer than the 61 (53.5 percent) who graduated abroad.

The single universities with the greatest number of chaebol family graduates were Yonsei University (17), Seoul National University (11), and Ewha Womans University (6). Among foreign universities, Boston University accounted for the largest number of graduates at four, followed by New York University, Brown University, the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and Cornell University with three apiece. The Boston University alumni were Hankook Tire CEO Cho Hyung-bum, IS Dongseo CEO Kwon Min-seok, Hanmi Science president Lim Jong-yoon, and Hwaseung Industries vice chairman Hyun Seok-ho. Doosan Infracore vice president Park Jae-won, Daesang Group managing director Lim Se-ryung, and Moorim Group managing director Lee Do-gyun all graduated from NYU, while Shinsegae Group vice president Chung Yong-jin, Hyosung president Cho Hyun-sang, and Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction senior managing director Cho Won-kook graduated from Brown.

Fifty-eight of the 126 chaebol offspring examined, or 46.0 percent, had worked at another company first rather than being hired directly by their parents’ company. Thirty of the 58, or 51.7 percent, had worked in the areas of management consulting and finance, while seven (12.1 percent) had worked in advertising/marketing and three each (5.2 percent) in law and business/sales.

Among those with career experience in management consulting and sales, six had worked with the Boston Consulting Group, three with Accenture, and two each with A.T. Kearney, Morgan Stanley, BearingPoint, Bain & Company, and Samjong KMPG.

By Choi Hyun-june, staff reporter

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