Jay Y. Lee, the Samsung COO, Chief Operations Officer, was arrested in the early hours IST, based on corruption charges. This will affect the decisions of acquisitions and the strategic investments of the tech giant. This also has affected the strong board members of the brand. Though the Board of directors can make decisions, there is a requirement of a person to head the brand.
The Choice for this is Choi Gee-sung, who is the second lieutenant of the Samsung group and also mentor for Jay Y. Lee. The flagship business of Samsung Electronics is sailing the stable waters but it is necessary that there be a person to make major decisions and big calls for this brand. An insider from Samsung, speaking about Choi said, “Choi is very experienced and has done a good job. He is the one best placed to manage group-level affairs in Lee’s absence.”
Samsung Electronics, as of now, is still recovering from the exploding batteries of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone debacle. Also, the semiconductor of the business is not faring well in the market. The share prices as of 2016 have gone up to 60 percent. The conglomerate also faced a huge blow when the bribery and corruption scandal led the parliament to impeach Park Geun Hye, the South Korean President of Samsung. This has put a halt on the operations of the brand.
Another executive of Choi’s office said that they are mainly focusing for now on the investigation on Lee and Samsung. For now, all the operations will be under Choi and run on an emergency plan. But some believe that Choi’s power will be limited as he too is under investigation by the special prosecutors in corruption charges.
Some high commands are confident to go ahead with the day to day business as the brand has a system in place that has professional management teams that will help in running the business.
