Hanwha Semitech Names 37-Year-Old Strategist as Fourth CEO in Two Years

[Korea Financial Times, Jung Jina] Hanwha Semitech has appointed a strategist in his 30s, in his second year with the group, to a CEO post that has changed hands four times in less than two years. Rather than a veteran engineer from the semiconductor equipment industry, the company chose a business head who came from the consulting industry.

The appointment appears to reflect a judgment that the semiconductor equipment business has begun to generate profit in earnest, placing greater weight on business strategy and execution than on technical expertise. It also offers a glimpse of how the semiconductor equipment business will be developed under Hanwha M&S, where President Kim Dong-seon oversees future strategy.

Fourth Chief in Two Years… A Strategist in His Second Year with the Group

Hanwha Semitech, a subsidiary of Hanwha Vision, named Kim Jin-woo, head of business operations, as its incoming CEO on the 9th. Kim Ki-chul, who had concurrently served as CEO of both Hanwha Vision and Hanwha Semitech, will focus on expanding Hanwha Vision’s business. The incoming CEO Kim will take sole charge of the semiconductor equipment business.
The CEO post at Hanwha Semitech has changed four times since March 2025. In March last year, Hanwha Vision CEO Kim Ki-chul took on the Hanwha Semitech CEO role concurrently, and in October, Kim Jae-hyun, who had spent about 30 years in the semiconductor equipment industry at companies including Samsung Electronics and Applied Materials, was named as the incoming CEO. The plan was to put an expert with a background in equipment design and technology development at the forefront to bolster the development of next-generation equipment.

After Kim Jae-hyun stepped down for personal reasons, Kim Ki-chul again took the Hanwha Semitech CEO post concurrently in the group’s reshuffle this past July. At the time, Hanwha Semitech cited organizational stability, stronger competitiveness and synergy with Hanwha Vision as the reasons for the appointment. The concurrent arrangement was wound up after about three months, and a strategist in his 30s, in his second year with the group, was chosen as the fourth head.

Consultant-Turned-Business Head… Led Growth in Semiconductor Equipment Sales

Born in 1989, the incoming CEO Kim graduated from Korea University with a degree in statistics, worked at the global accounting firm KPMG and the strategy consulting firm A.T. Kearney, among others, and joined the Hanwha Group last year. He then moved to Hanwha Semitech, where he was in charge of strategy formulation and business operations. He has thus become the head of an affiliate in the year after joining the group.

Hanwha Semitech introduced Kim as a strategy specialist with expertise in semiconductors, secondary batteries and industrial machinery. The company explained that he led the expansion of the back-end semiconductor equipment market, its core business, and, as head of business operations, worked on restructuring the industrial equipment business and securing growth engines.

The company cited the results of the semiconductor equipment business, which Kim had devoted himself to, as the reason for his selection. Last year, Hanwha Semitech posted sales of over KRW 90 billion from the TC bonder “SFM5 Expert,” used in producing high-bandwidth memory (HBM). A TC bonder is equipment that applies heat and pressure to stack and bond multiple DRAM chips vertically.
In the third quarter of this year, panel-level packaging (PLP) equipment sales began to be reflected in earnest, and semiconductor equipment sales rose 115.2% from a year earlier to KRW 84.8 billion. This also surpassed sales of surface mount technology (SMT) equipment (KRW 63.9 billion), the company’s previous mainstay. PLP is a technology that packages semiconductors on rectangular panels instead of round wafers. Hanwha Semitech’s third-quarter sales rose 56.2% to KRW 169.8 billion, and it swung to an operating profit of KRW 37.3 billion.

Profit also grew rapidly. According to Hanwha Vision, the operating profit of the Hanwha Semitech business (industrial equipment segment) in the first half of this year was about KRW 2.5 billion. Profit that had hovered around KRW 2.5 billion for the entire first half swelled to KRW 37.3 billion in the third quarter alone.

First Semitech Appointment Under Kim Dong-seon: Weight on Market Strategy

This is the first Hanwha Semitech CEO appointment under the Hanwha M&S structure, which was launched this past August. Hanwha M&S is a holding company created through a spin-off, and President Kim Dong-seon, the third son of Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn, serves as its head of future strategy. Hanwha Semitech belongs to the Tech division along with Hanwha Vision, Hanwha Momentum and Hanwha Robotics.

In February last year, Hanwha Semitech changed its name from Hanwha Precision Machinery to Hanwha Semitech, formalizing its transition into a dedicated semiconductor equipment company. Semiconductor equipment is one of the growth pillars of the Hanwha M&S Tech division, and President Kim serves as head of future vision at Hanwha Semitech. Hanwha M&S plans to invest a total of KRW 4.7 trillion in capital expenditure, R&D and mergers and acquisitions through 2030.

The incoming CEO Kim was born in 1989, the same year as President Kim. By putting a “same-age strategist” at the forefront of a company whose shift to semiconductor equipment President Kim has led, the company appears to have judged that, with the foundation of the semiconductor equipment business in place, a strategy to broaden its customer and market base has become more important. The change from a veteran engineer to a consulting-trained strategist is interpreted as reflecting that view.

Will Frequent Turnover End? Technology and Customer Response Are the ‘Challenges’

With Kim at the helm, Hanwha Semitech plans to go all out to expand the TC bonder and PLP equipment markets and to open up new markets such as hybrid bonders.

In this process, shoring up technical capabilities has become important. Whereas his predecessor was an engineer with more than 30 years on semiconductor equipment sites, no related experience is evident in Kim’s career. Because customers’ quality verification and technical responsiveness decide orders in the equipment business, the key will be how he builds the technical organization to support them.

The company must also monetize its new equipment. To carry the results achieved with TC bonders over to PLP and hybrid bonders, it needs to secure new customers and pass mass-production qualification. How far it can put an end to frequent CEO changes and secure management continuity, and how quickly the CEO in his 30s can lead this process, will determine how much momentum President Kim’s growth vision for the Tech division gains.

A Hanwha Semitech official said, “We expect that CEO Kim, who has worked to stabilize core businesses including semiconductor equipment and expand the market, will continue to lead Hanwha Semitech’s new growth.”

Jung Jina (urzinnie@fntimes.com)