KOREA WHO

Cho Jung-ho is Chairman of Meritz Financial Group.

He was born in Incheon on October 5, 1958 (lunar calendar), the youngest of four sons and one daughter of Cho Choong-hoon, the founder of Hanjin Group.

He graduated from Thacher School in Boston, the United States, and earned a degree in economics from the University of Southern California. He later completed an MBA program at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland.

After joining Korean Air, he worked at Hanil Securities and Hanjin Investment & Securities before serving as Vice President of Dongyang Fire & Marine Insurance.

In 1997, he became CEO of Hanjin Investment & Securities.

Following the death of his father, founder Cho Choong-hoon, he separated the fire insurance, securities, and merchant banking businesses from Hanjin Group and established Meritz Financial Group as an independent entity.

He became Chairman of Meritz Financial Holdings, the group's holding company, but stepped back from frontline management after controversies surrounding excessive compensation and dividend payouts.

After serving as Executive Chairman of Meritz Securities, he returned as Chairman of Meritz Financial Holdings in 2014.

He is known for actively recruiting talented professionals and follows a performance-based compensation and personnel management philosophy.

He has stated that, for the sake of improving corporate governance efficiency, “I can give up passing the company on to my children.”

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