Sixth Anniversary of Late Former Chairman Lee Kun-hee: Samsung Family to Mark It Quietly This Week

[Financial News] Memorial events will be held in succession ahead of the sixth anniversary of the death of Lee Kun-hee, Samsung’s late former chairman, on the 25th.
According to business sources on the 18th, a memorial service marking the sixth anniversary of his death is scheduled to take place on the 23rd at the family burial site in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, two days before the anniversary.
The service is expected to take place without a separate formal event. Family members, including Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and Hong Ra-hee, honorary director of Leeum Museum of Art, along with Samsung’s top executives, are expected to gather to honor the late chairman’s wishes and achievements, including his New Management philosophy.
Chairman Lee and Samsung’s top executives are reportedly expected to move to Changjo Hall at the Samsung Human Resources Development Center in Yongin for lunch after the memorial service. Changjo Hall is a training center for new employees and houses a bust of the former chairman. In previous years, Chairman Lee has also had lunch there with executives after attending the memorial service.
Samsung also plans to hold a concert commemorating the sixth anniversary of the former chairman’s death on the 28th at the Concert Hall of Samsung Electronics’ Talent Development Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. Last year, pianist Park Jae-hong, cellist Han Jae-min and the Los Angeles Philharmonic took the stage. Chairman Lee and executives, as well as Samsung employees, are expected to attend.
Exhibitions introducing the cultural legacy left by the former chairman to the world are also continuing. The Lee Kun-hee Collection, which began its first overseas exhibition last November at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in the United States, was shown at the Art Institute of Chicago this year and is now on view for visitors at The British Museum. The current special exhibition in the United Kingdom features 100 works, including 10 National Treasures and 13 Treasures, selected from the approximately 23,000 items donated to the state by the Samsung family in 2021.
Meanwhile, after his father, founding chairman Lee Byung-chul, died in 1987, Lee Kun-hee became the second chairman of Samsung Group. He is credited with driving innovation across the group through his 1993 “New Management Declaration,” summed up by the words, “Change everything except your wife and children,” and elevating Samsung into the ranks of global companies.
He collapsed from a heart attack at his home in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, in May 2014 and remained bedridden for about six years and five months before passing away on October 25, 2020, at the age of 78.
[email protected] Park Ji-yeon Reporter