Hankook Tire Restructures Organization and Announces New Executives for 2019

• - Hankook Tire Worldwide restructures its organization through establishing IT Strategy Department, and in Hankook Tire, Car Life Business Headquarters, Asia-Pacific, Africa & Middle East Division, and Future Technology Development Team and more
• - Hankook Tire promotes 3 Senior Vice Presidents, 11 Vice Presidents
• - Affiliate companies promote 1 Senior Vice President, 2 Vice Presidents

December 6, 2018 (Seoul, Korea) - Hankook Tire and Hankook Tire Worldwide announced its organization restructuring and new executive appoint to further its goal of becoming a global top-tier company by enhancing global competitiveness. The changes will take effect on January 1, 2019.

Hankook Tire Worldwide (CEO Hyunshick Cho) plans to create an IT Strategy Department to accelerate digital transformation such as a group IT policy function as a global company and to innovate corporate structure.

The organizational restructuring of Hankook Tire (President & CEO Hyunbum Cho) includes establishment of a Car Life Business Headquarters to secure new growth engines, strengthening the provision of automobile total services as well as the sales of tires for passenger cars and truck buses. In particular, it will create further synergies by expanding business areas in automotive maintenance, repair and related parts through import car dealer business.

In terms of global organization, Hankook Tire will establish overseas branches in Austria, Indonesia, UAE and Vietnam as well as a regional head office in Asia-Pacific, Africa & Middle East region. It will also establish offices in Taipei (Taiwan) and Belgrade (Serbia), creating a basis for a balanced regional growth.

The Production & Engineering Staff Office plans to strengthen the organization by creating a Future Technology Development Team that can cope with global digital trends and new technologies and also strengthen its quality and R&D organization in order to cement collaboration between each divisions.

Based on the organizational restructuring, three senior vice presidents, eleven vice presidents were also promoted.

Jeongrock Yoon, who has been promoted to a senior vice president, will focus on the production efficiency of the Daejeon plant as a specialist with experience from the construction of a new plant to the stabilization of production, as a plant managing director at the Hungary plant, Geumsan plant and the Tennessee plant.

Senior vice president Hyunjun Cho is a global marketing specialist, including tire business for overseas new cars, and plans to boost the premium brand value by expanding the supply of global premium new car tires.

Seonghak Hwang, the senior vice president, who had worked as a plant managing director of Jiaxing plant and the head of the OE development team at the Chinese headquarters, is expected to be able to maximize the synergy between R&D and manufacturing. In particular, as the plant manager of the Hungary plant, which is the outpost of the European market, Mr. Hwang will focus more on the steady provision of tires to the global premium new car supply and replacement market, in line with the company’s continued growth in the European market.

Hankook Tire also appointed Seyoul Ryu as the head of the IT Strategy Department who had worked as an executive director of Hyundai AutoEver ICT business division and as a general manager of SAP KOREA. Mr. Ryu is an ERP specialist based on various innovation/PI project experiences and he will lead the fourth industrial revolution and the group’s entire digital innovation.

Hankook Tire and Hankook Tire Worldwide expect to further strengthen its position as a global premium brand through the reorganization of its group structure and regular appointments in 2019, thereby growing as an innovative company with global competitiveness.