On November 26, 2024, at the Walkerhill Hotel in Gwangjin District, Seoul, the 50th anniversary ceremony of the Korea Higher Education Foundation took place. The lights in the venue dimmed, and an AI video appeared on the screen. The image featured Choi Jong-hyun, the second-generation chairman of the SK Group and the founder of this foundation.

He passed away suddenly in Los Angeles in 1998, 26 years ago. In the AI video, he spoke again, addressing the young people who had gone abroad with foundation scholarships back then: "Sow seeds in your heart; I hope you carry the dream of growing into a big tree; we are willing to wait until the seeds you planted grow into trees."

Sitting at the central table was his son Choi Tae-won, the current chairman of SK Group and the head of South Korea's second-largest conglomerate, along with his two children he brought to witness this moment, daughter Choi Yun-jeong and son Choi In-geun. Choi Tae-won later explained to the media why he brought them: "This is our legacy, so they need to be trained. They need to see what their grandfather did and what their father did." He stated it was "obligatory for them to participate." He also mentioned the concept of "remembering the source of water": when drinking water, think about where it came from; beneficiaries should also remember those who originally dug the well.

SK Hynix surged 700% over the past year, and its market value recently exceeded 1,000 trillion won, surpassing its old rival Samsung Electronics, making it the most valuable asset in the history of South Korean conglomerates. As the AI cycle pushed Hynix to the most watched position in the South Korean capital market, when the outside world looked back for the heirs of the company, they found that the third generation of SK did not position themselves according to the traditional conglomerate drama. The eldest daughter stepped into the corporate executive narrative first, the second daughter had deep connections with Hynix, Washington, and the U.S. military network, while the eldest son, who seemed most like an heir, was the quietest of them all.

After Hynix's explosive surge, the old script for heirs of South Korean conglomerates has failed

In the past, the succession of South Korean conglomerates roughly had four keywords: eldest son, equity, marriage connections, and father's recognition. Samsung, Hyundai, and Hanwha have all repeated this script.

In October 2022, Lee Jae-yong, the third generation of the Samsung Group, was officially appointed chairman, completing the generational handover; his eldest son Lee Ji-ho recently enrolled in the Korean Navy Officer School to prepare for military service, which is already a "succession training act" for the new generation of South Korean conglomerates. Hyundai Motor Group followed slightly behind, completing its handover in 2020 under the third generation Chung Eui-sun. Hanwha Group is set to transfer half of the holding company's equity to three sons in 2025, effectively handing over the empire to the current vice chairman Kim Dong-kwan, who is 42 years old, and his status as the eldest son has never been questioned by the public.

The core of this script is "to let the public and the market recognize who the crown prince is in advance." From Lee Jae-yong to Chung Eui-sun to Kim Dong-kwan, no matter how much personality, ability, or path differences there are, they have been collectively written into the "successor" position by their fathers, families, and the media, and gradually moved towards that chair through equity, military service, education, and professional training.

SK is different. Choi Tae-won has three children with his ex-wife Ryu Soo-yeong: eldest daughter Choi Yun-jeong (born in 1989), second daughter Choi Min-jeong (born in 1991), and eldest son Choi In-geun (born in 1995). All three children are currently linked to the group's future, but none can fit into the "crown prince" position.

Choi Yun-jeong was early dubbed "the most obvious candidate for succession" by South Korean financial media, but her focus is not on chips but on SK Bioscience; Choi Min-jeong worked on international trade and policy response in SK Hynix's U.S. subsidiary, but left Hynix in 2022 to pursue medical entrepreneurship in San Francisco; Choi In-geun seems most like a traditional male heir, yet he is set to leave SK E&S in July 2025 to join McKinsey's Seoul office. This path to a consulting company is viewed as "external training" rather than a succession directive.

Choi Tae-won himself stated clearly in a 2021 interview with BBC Korean: "Nothing has been decided yet. My children also need to work hard to earn opportunities. My son is still young and will live his own life; I will not force him." When asked whether board approval is necessary for his children to participate in management, he answered, "Yes."

This expression has turned inheritance from a family affair into a public legitimacy test. All three children must prove themselves, and what they can present as proof no longer hinges on equity, marriage connections, or status as the eldest son.

Choi Yun-jeong: "Most obvious heir," from the laboratory to the conference table

On June 28, 2024, at the SKMS Research Institute in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, an SK Group business strategy meeting took place. Participants included the CEOs of major subsidiaries such as SK, SK Innovation, SK Telecom, and SK Hynix, along with key family members of the group, totaling over 30 people. Choi Tae-won was attending via video from a business trip in the U.S. The meeting was described by South Korean media as an intensive discussion with a sense of crisis, arranged for one night and two days, without a preset end time on the first day, until a direction was formed.

Choi Yun-jeong sat at the conference table. She was the only participant there as Choi Tae-won's child and also the youngest executive within the SK Group. Media interpreted her "sudden appearance" as part of her business training.

To understand why she could sit at that table, we need to look back at her training. Choi Yun-jeong was born in August 1989 at the Seoul National University Hospital. At that time, her grandfather Ryu Tae-woo was the incumbent president of South Korea. She spent her childhood and middle school years studying at an international school in Beijing, then attended the University of Chicago for her undergraduate education in biology, the same university where her parents studied abroad. During her undergraduate studies, she also worked as a researcher for two years at the Chicago Brain Science Institute and had research experience at Harvard's Physical Chemistry Institute. After graduating, she joined Bain & Company as a consulting analyst for two years. This training is standard for the third generation of South Korean conglomerates.

Choi Yun-jeong (left) with Choi Tae-won (middle) and Choi Min-jeong (right)

In 2017, she joined SK Bioscience as the head of the strategic investment team. However, in 2019, she made a decision not typically associated with an heir: she temporarily left SK to return to Stanford for a master's degree in biomedical informatics. This program focuses on computational biology rather than ordinary biology. Two years later, she returned to SK to continue her strategic work and simultaneously began her doctoral studies in biological sciences at Seoul National University, majoring in genetics and developmental biology.

In January 2024, she was promoted to Senior Vice President of SK Bioscience's business development department, leading the introduction of radioactive drug therapies (RPT) and contracts for the supply of radioactive isotopes. This is a core pipeline for SK Bioscience's transformation from traditional neurology medications to precision medicine in the AI era. By the end of the same year, Choi Tae-won established a "Growth Support Department" in the top holding company SK Inc., responsible for mid- to long-term planning, portfolio management, global expansion, and new business evaluations, reported directly to her.

Her marriage also deviates from the old conglomerate script. In October 2017, she married Bain colleague Yoon Do-yeon. Yoon Do-yeon graduated from Seoul National University's Business Administration Department and later served as co-representative for the South Korean AI infrastructure startup More, which focuses on AI model training and computational parallelization software platforms. The company received strategic investment from KT and was valued at approximately 350 billion won by 2025. This is not a traditional conglomerate marriage but also not what Chinese media often refer to as "marrying an ordinary employee." It represents a new elite network combination: the eldest daughter of a conglomerate marrying a technology entrepreneur of the AI era.

In the past decades of female heir narratives in conglomerates like Samsung and CJ, daughters were often seen through art galleries, hotels, charitable foundations, luxury retail, or providing dowries for their children. Choi Yun-jeong's position is different. She sits at the conference table that decides the future direction of SK Group. Her visibility does not come from marriage, art, or image-making but is established by her scientific training, consulting experience, doctoral thesis, strategic investments, and executive position in the group.

The way daughters of conglomerates are seen is changing. However, Choi Yun-jeong rarely speaks publicly. While she is often discussed by South Korean media as "the most likely successor," her personal story remains quiet in public reports.

Choi Min-jeong: The global heir of Hynix, connected through the military and Washington

On October 13, 2024, at the SK Group's Walkerhill Hotel, Choi Min-jeong, the second daughter of Choi Tae-won, hosted a special wedding with Chinese-American entrepreneur Kevin Hwang.

About 500 people attended the wedding, including Lee Jae-yong, Koo Kwang-mo, Kim Dong-kwan, and other members of the SK family. This was the first time Choi Tae-won and Ryu Soo-yeong appeared in the same space following their 1.38 trillion won divorce lawsuit, sitting side by side at the parents' seat of the bride. Also present was a dog that Choi Min-jeong and Kevin Hwang raise together.

Choi Min-jeong's wedding scene

After the groom's entrance, Choi Min-jeong walked into the venue alone without being escorted by her father. There was no officiant at the entire wedding. Her sister Choi Yun-jeong delivered a speech, and the groom's brother gave a speech in English. Before the ceremony began, the entire audience observed a moment of silence for Korean-American comrades. A vacant table was set up on one side of the venue, adorned with medals, military tags, roses, and lemons, a traditional set-up of the U.S. military to commemorate missing and fallen soldiers, called the Missing Man Table.

Choi Min-jeong, born in 1991, studied at the Affiliated High School of Renmin University of China and then entered Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management for her undergraduate studies. In the third generation of South Korean conglomerates, very few have attended university in China; most either go to Ivy League schools or stay at prestigious universities in Korea. During her studies in Beijing, she reportedly supported herself through scholarships, convenience store jobs, and as a lecturer for admissions academies, hardly receiving financial support from her parents. This "self-reliance path" is a rare marker among children of South Korean conglomerates.

In 2014, she made a decision that baffled all of South Korean media: applying for the 117th batch of South Korean Naval Officer Candidates. In South Korea, military service is mandatory for males and entirely voluntary for females, making her the first woman from a conglomerate family to serve the military voluntarily. During her interview, she expressed being inspired by the spirit of challenge and leadership from Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer of 1915. Throughout her 11-week pre-commission training, she often told family and friends, "I am proud to be a daughter of the Republic of Korea. After my training, I feel an even greater sense of pride."

Choi Min-jeong’s military photo

She was assigned to the destroyer ROKS Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin (DDH-975) as an Assistant Operations Officer. In December 2015, she was dispatched nearby Somalia to the Gulf of Aden as part of the 19th troop regiment of the Cheonghae Unit, performing anti-piracy escort missions. Before retiring, she served as a command control officer at the Situation Room of the Second Fleet Command of the West Sea, retiring with the rank of Lieutenant in the Navy on November 30, 2017.

After retirement, she returned to China and worked at an investment company for about a year before going to Georgetown University in the U.S. to earn a master’s degree in international business policy. In August 2019, she joined SK Hynix's External Cooperation Department INTRA, handling international trade and policy responses, commuting between Washington and Seoul. This was her direct connection to SK Hynix. However, she was not an engineer, not a product manager, and not in factory operations. Her work focused on policy, later transferring to SK Hynix's U.S. operations strategy department, responsible for mergers and acquisitions and investments.

She also met her husband Kevin Hwang during this time; they lived as neighbors in the DuPont Circle area of Washington.

Kevin Hwang was born in Indiana, USA, has a bachelor's degree from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford, and joined the U.S. Marine Corps as a commissioned officer in 2016. He worked in South Korea for about nine months starting in October 2020 as a supply officer for U.S. Forces Korea. Both have military backgrounds, which South Korean media described as "shared military experiences deepening their relationship."

In February 2022, Choi Min-jeong took leave from SK Hynix to work as an unpaid consultant at the telemedicine startup Done Global in San Francisco, later reported by South Korean media to have served as CFO. A year later, she co-founded Integral Health with scholars from Yale University’s psychiatry field, serving as CEO and focusing on AI-driven collaborative care and behavioral health integration.

Her current LinkedIn self-introduction reads: "Founder of Integral Health | Investor in Healthcare & AI | Veteran | 2x Exits". The "veteran" label still occupies the most prominent position.

Choi Min-jeong's life repeatedly revolves around the same theme: the military. From Shackleton to the Gulf of Aden, from SK Hynix INTRA in Washington to marrying a former U.S. Marine Corps captain. Unlike her sister, who entered the internal management of SK, she did not marry into a prestigious Korean family as per the traditional conglomerate script, but represents the new era position of SK Hynix in the AI era. Semiconductor companies are becoming increasingly like geopolitical entities during the AI cycle, having to manage U.S. policies, trade restrictions, supply chain security, and capital mergers. Choi Min-jeong's resume aligns perfectly with this trajectory.

Choi In-geun: The one who resembles an heir, yet remains silent

The story of Choi In-geun begins in a hospital room.

In 2003, SK Group was embroiled in an accounting scandal, leading Choi Tae-won to prison. In the same year, Choi Tae-won and Ryu Soo-yeong's youngest son, Choi In-geun, was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, and doctors stated he would need lifelong insulin injections. Choi In-geun was eight years old at that time.

During that period, Ryu Soo-yeong, the daughter of a former South Korean president, cared for her child herself, staying in the pediatric ward of Seoul National University Hospital. During the nights, Choi In-geun would sleep in bed while she sat beside him alone. Ryu Soo-yeong later recalled in an interview that her son was still struggling with diabetes at 17, but he was a cheerful boy, often volunteering at a nearby church choir and performing special songs with beatboxing during services, and at night, he would copy the Bible together with his second sister, Choi Min-jeong.

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