SK Hải Lực Sĩ những người thừa kế: Khi kịch bản tập đoàn tài phiệt thất bại

On November 26, 2024, at the Walkerhill Hotel in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, the 50th-anniversary ceremony of the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies was held. The venue lights dimmed, and an AI-generated video appeared on the screen. It depicted Choi Jong-hyun, the second-generation chairman of SK Group and the founder of the foundation.

He had passed away suddenly in Los Angeles in 1998, 26 years ago. In the AI video, he spoke again, telling the young people who had gone abroad on the foundation's scholarships: "Plant a seed in your heart, and I hope you dream of it growing into a mighty tree; we are willing to wait until the seed you planted turns into a tree."

Sitting at the central table in the audience were his son, Chey Tae-won, the current chairman of SK Group and head of South Korea's second-largest conglomerate, along with the two children he had brought to witness this: his eldest daughter, Chey Yoon-jeong, and eldest son, Chey In-geun. Explaining later to the media why he brought them, Chey Tae-won said: "This is our legacy, so they need to be trained. They need to see what their grandfather did and what their father did." He mentioned it was "obligatory to require their attendance." At the event, he also referenced "drinking water and remembering its source": when you drink water, think of where it comes from, and beneficiaries should remember the one who originally dug the well.

SK Hynix's stock has surged 700% over the past year, with its market capitalization recently surpassing 1,000 trillion won, overtaking its long-time rival Samsung Electronics and becoming the most valuable asset in the history of South Korean conglomerates. As the AI cycle propelled Hynix to the most watched position in the Korean capital market, outsiders looking for the company's heirs found that SK's third generation hasn't neatly filled the traditional chaebol script. The eldest daughter entered the group's executive narrative earliest, the second daughter has the deepest connections with Hynix, Washington, and the US military network, while the eldest son, seemingly the most likely heir, is actually the quietest.

After Hynix's Surge, the Old Script for Korean Chaebol Heirs Fails

The succession of Korean chaebols has historically revolved around four key elements: the eldest son, equity, marriage connections, and the father's approval. Samsung, Hyundai, and Hanwha have all repeated this script.

In October 2022, Samsung's third-generation leader, Lee Jae-yong, was officially appointed chairman, completing the generational transition; his eldest son, Lee Ji-ho, recently enrolled in the Korea Naval Academy to prepare for his mandatory military service early, itself a typical "succession training move" for the new generation of Korean chaebols. Hyundai Motor Group followed slightly later, with the third-generation leader, Chung Eui-sun, taking full control in 2020. Hanwha Group, meanwhile, transferred half of its holding company shares to three sons in 2025, effectively handing the empire to current Vice Chairman Kim Dong-kwan, who is 42 years old and whose status as the eldest son has never been doubted by outsiders.

The core of this script is "allowing the public and the market to recognize the crown prince early." From Lee Jae-yong to Chung Eui-sun and Kim Dong-kwan, regardless of differences in personality, ability, or path, they were all written into the "successor" position by their fathers, families, and the media, gradually moving towards that chair through equity, military service, education, and professional training.

SK is different. Chey Tae-won and his ex-wife, Roh Sook-Young, have three children: eldest daughter Chey Yoon-jeong (born 1989), second daughter Chey Min-jeong (born 1991), and eldest son Chey In-geun (born 1995). All three children are currently connected to the group's future, but none fits the "crown prince" mold.

Chey Yoon-jeong has long been called the "most apparent succession candidate" by Korean financial media, but her focus is not chips, but SK Biopharmaceuticals; Chey Min-jeong worked in SK Hynix's US subsidiary handling international commerce and policy responses, but left Hynix in 2022 for a medical startup in San Francisco; Chey In-geun most resembles the traditional male heir, but he left SK E&S in July 2025 to join McKinsey's Seoul office. According to conventions for the third generation of Korean chaebols, a consulting firm is a path for "external experience," not a succession directive.

Chey Tae-won himself made it clear in a 2021 BBC Korean interview: "Nothing has been decided yet. My children also have to work hard to earn their opportunities. My son is still young and will live his own life; I won't force him." When asked if children's involvement in management requires board approval, he answered, "Yes."

This statement turned succession from a family matter into a test of public legitimacy. All three children must prove themselves, and what they can use for this proof is no longer equity, marriage connections, or the status of the eldest son.

Chey Yoon-jeong: The "Most Apparent Heir," From Lab to Boardroom

On June 28, 2024, at the SKMS Research Institute in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, SK Group's management strategy meeting. Attendees included CEOs from major subsidiaries like SK, SK Innovation, SK Telecom, and SK Hynix, plus key family members, totaling over 30 people. Chey Tae-won was on a business trip in the US and attended via video. The meeting was described by Korean media as an intensive discussion filled with a sense of crisis; arranged as a one-night, two-day event, the first day had "no preset end time" until a direction was formed.

Chey Yoon-jeong sat at the table. She was the only attendee present as Chey Tae-won's child and the youngest executive within SK Group. Media interpreted her "sudden appearance" as part of her management training.

To understand why she could sit at that table, we need to rewind and look at her training. Born in August 1989 at the Seoul National University Hospital, her maternal grandfather, Roh Tae-woo, was then the President of South Korea. She attended international schools in Beijing during her childhood and middle school, got her bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Chicago—the same university her parents attended. As an undergraduate, she also worked as a researcher at the Chicago Brain Science Institute for two years and had research experience at the Harvard Physical Chemistry Institute. After graduating, she worked as a consultant at Bain & Company for two years. This is the standard training for the third generation of Korean chaebols.

Chey Yoon-jeong (left) with Chey Tae-won (center) and Chey Min-jeong (right)

She joined SK Biopharmaceuticals in 2017 as head of the Strategic Investment team. But in 2019, she made a decision that didn't seem like a typical heir: she temporarily left SK to pursue a Master's in Biomedical Informatics at Stanford. This was computational biology, not general biology. Two years later, she returned to SK for strategy work while simultaneously starting a PhD in Biological Sciences at Seoul National University. She is still pursuing her PhD, majoring in Genetics and Development.

In January 2024, she was promoted to Head of Business Development (Vice President level) at SK Biopharmaceuticals, leading the introduction of radiopharmaceutical therapy (RPT) and radioisotope supply contracts. This is a core pipeline for SK Biopharmaceuticals' transformation from traditional neurological drugs to precision medicine in the AI era. Later that year, Chey Tae-won established a new "Growth Support Department" at SK Inc., the group's top holding company, responsible for mid-to-long-term planning, portfolio management, global expansion, and new business evaluation, and placed it directly under her.

Her marriage also defies the old chaebol script. In October 2017, she married Yoon Do-yeon, a former colleague at Bain. Yoon graduated from Seoul National University's Business School and later became co-CEO of More (모레), a Korean AI infrastructure startup. The company builds software platforms for AI model training and computation parallelization, received strategic investment from KT in 2021, and was valued at around 350 billion won in 2025. This is not a traditional chaebol marriage alliance, nor is it the "marrying a common employee" often portrayed in Chinese media. It's a new type of elite network integration: the chaebol's eldest daughter marrying a tech entrepreneur of the AI era.

In the narratives of female heirs at Samsung, CJ, and other chaebols over the past decades, daughters were often seen in relation to art museums, hotels, charitable foundations, luxury retail, or dowries. Chey Yoon-jeong's position is different. She sits at the table where SK Group decides its future direction. Her visibility isn't defined by marriage, art, or image crafting, but by scientific training, consulting experience, a doctoral thesis, strategic investments, and a high-level executive position within the group.

The way chaebol daughters are perceived is changing. Yet, Chey Yoon-jeong herself rarely speaks publicly. While she is discussed in Korean media under the label of "most likely succession candidate," her personal story remains quiet in public reports.

Chey Min-jeong: The Warship, Washington, and Hynix's Globalized Heir

On October 13, 2024, also at SK Group's own Walkerhill Hotel, Chey Tae-won's second daughter, Chey Min-jeong, married Kevin Hwang, a Chinese-American entrepreneur, in a special ceremony.

About 500 guests attended the wedding, including Lee Jae-yong, Koo Kwang-mo, Kim Dong-kwan, and other members of the SK family. After the 1.38 trillion won divorce proceedings, Chey Tae-won and Roh Sook-young appeared in the same space for the first time, sitting side-by-side in the parents' seats on the bride's side. Beside them were the jointly owned dog of Chey Min-jeong and Kevin Hwang.

Chey Min-jeong's Wedding Scene

After the groom entered, Chey Min-jeong walked into the venue alone, without being escorted by her father. The entire wedding had no officiant. Her older sister, Chey Yoon-jeong, gave a congratulatory speech, and the groom's brother spoke in English. Before the ceremony began, a moment of silence was observed for fallen Korean and American comrades. An empty table was set to one side, decorated with medals, military dog tags, roses, and a lemon, a US military tradition called the Missing Man Table, honoring missing and fallen servicemembers.

Born in 1991, Chey Min-jeong attended the High School Affiliated with Renmin University of China and earned her bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Peking University's Guanghua School of Management. Among the third generation of Korean chaebols, hardly anyone chooses to study in China for an undergraduate degree; others typically go to the Ivy League or stay in Korea's top universities. During her time in Beijing, she reportedly covered her living expenses with scholarships, part-time jobs at convenience stores, and tutoring income, receiving almost no financial support from her parents. This path of "self-reliance" is an extremely rare marker among the children of Korean chaebols.

In 2014, she made a decision that baffled all Korean media: she applied for the 117th class of the Republic of Korea Naval Officer Candidate School. Military service is mandatory for South Korean men but entirely voluntary for women, making her the first woman in a Korean chaebol family to voluntarily enlist. During her interview, she said she was inspired by the spirit and leadership of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton from 1915. During the 11 weeks of pre-commission training, she often told visiting family and friends: "I feel proud to be a daughter of the Republic of Korea. After going through this training, my sense of pride has grown even stronger."

Chey Min-jeong's Military Photo

She was assigned to the destroyer ROKS Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin (DDH-975) as an Operations Information Assistant Officer. In December 2015, she deployed with the 19th contingent of the Cheonghae Unit to the Gulf of Aden near Somalia for anti-piracy escort missions. Before her discharge, she served as a Command and Control Room Duty Officer at the 2nd Fleet Combat Team Headquarters, retiring with the rank of Lieutenant (junior grade) on November 30, 2017.

After retiring from the military, she returned to China and worked at an investment company for about a year in private equity. She then went to Georgetown University in the US for a Master's in International Business and Policy. In August 2019, she joined SK Hynix's external cooperation department, INTRA, working on international commerce and policy responses, traveling between Washington, D.C. and Seoul. This was her direct connection to SK Hynix. But she was not an engineer, product manager, or factory operations staff. Her work was in policy, and she later moved to the strategy department of SK Hynix's American legal entity, handling M&A and investments.

It was during this time that she met her husband, Kevin Hwang. They were neighbors in the Dupont Circle area of Washington, D.C.

Kevin Hwang was born in Indiana, USA, holds a BA from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford. He joined the US Marine Corps as a commissioned officer in 2016 and served in South Korea for about nine months starting in October 2020 as a logistics plans officer for US Forces Korea. Both have military backgrounds, described by Korean media as "a relationship deepened by shared military experience."

In February 2022, Chey Min-jeong took a leave of absence from SK Hynix and became an unpaid advisor at a San Francisco-based telehealth startup, Done Global; Korean media later reported she actually served as its CFO. A year later, she co-founded Integral Health with a scholar from Yale University's Department of Psychiatry, serving as CEO, focusing on AI-driven collaborative care and behavioral health integration.

Her current LinkedIn bio reads: "Founder of Integral Health | Investor in Healthcare & AI | Veteran | 2x Exits." The "Veteran" tag still sits in the most prominent spot.

A recurring theme runs through Chey Min-jeong's life: the military. From Shackleton to the Gulf of Aden, from SK Hynix's INTRA in Washington to marrying a former US Marine Corps captain. Unlike her sister, she didn't enter SK's internal management layer, nor did she marry into a prestigious Korean family according to the traditional chaebol script. But she has personified the new era in which SK Hynix operates. Semiconductor companies are increasingly becoming geopolitical companies in the AI cycle, dealing with US policy, trade controls, supply chain security, and capital M&A. Chey Min-jeong's resume aligns perfectly with this trajectory.

Chey In-geun: The Most Likely Heir, Why He Is the Most Silent

Chey In-geun's story begins in a hospital room.

In 2003, SK Group was embroiled in an accounting fraud scandal, leading to Chey Tae-won's imprisonment. That same year, his young son, Chey In-geun, was diagnosed with childhood diabetes, requiring lifelong insulin injections. Chey In-geun was 8 years old.

During that time, Roh Sook-young, the daughter of a former South Korean president, took her son and stayed with him in the pediatric ward of Seoul National University Hospital. At night, while Chey In-geun slept, she would sit alone beside him. Roh later recalled in an interview that her son struggled hard with diabetes until he was 17, but he was a very cheerful boy. He often served in the choir at his local church, performed beatbox special songs during worship, and at night, he and his older sister, Chey Min-jeong, would copy the Bible alongside their mother.

Chey In-geun's educational path differed from his two sisters. He first attended a non-traditional middle school in Korea known for its innovative education, then transferred to a school in Hawaii. His mother's educational philosophy was "no need to be anxious about forcing a child into the same university as others," encouraging a creative approach to parenting that was different. While Chey In-geun attended high school in Hawaii, Roh Sook-young lived there for over two years as a live-in mother.

He later enrolled at Brown University in the US to study Physics, following in his father's footsteps. Chey Tae-won also majored in Physics at Korea University, and Chey Tae-won's brother, SK Group Vice Chairman Chey Jae-won, also graduated from Brown University's Physics department. This represents the only clear academic continuity in the family. The father-son relationship between Chey In-geun and Chey Tae-won seems good; they communicate frequently, play tennis together, and have been photographed chatting shoulder-to-shoulder in front of a restaurant outside Seoul.