Chung Ju Yung

Chung Ju-yung 1915–2001  

Founder and former chairman of the Hyundai Group
Nationality: Korean.
Born: November 25, 1915, in Asan-ri, North Korea.
Died: March 21, 2001.
Family: Son of Chung Bong-sik and Han Seong-sil; married Byun Joong-seok; children: nine.
Career: 1931–1934, construction laborer; Bokheung Rice Store, 1934–1935, clerk; Kyongil Grain Company, 1936–1939, founder and manager; A-do Service, 1939–1943, founder and manager; Hyundai Motor Industrial Company, 1946–1987, founder and chairman; Hyundai Civil Industries, 1947–1987, founder and chairman.
Awards: Commander of the British Empire, Queen Elizabeth II, 1977; honorary degree, George Washington University, 1982; Olympic Medallion, International Olympic Committee, 1992; Grand Prize, Korea Academy of Business Historians, 1999; listed as one of the 10 greatest persons in Asia in the twentieth century, Far Eastern Economic Review, 1999 .
Publications: Born in This Land, 1992.
■ Born of a peasant family in what is now North Korea during the period when the country was a Japanese colony, Chung Ju-yung showed an early inclination for entrepreneurship. After surviving the Korean War of 1950–1953, he set up two fledgling companies, one dealing in auto repairs and the other in construction. These companies formed the core of a vast industrial empire that became the Hyundai Group, one of South Korea's major chaebol , or family-owned business conglomerates. As much a nation-builder as an industrialist, Chung believed that businessmen should serve a larger purpose than the narrow mandate of profit; they were, in his view, also responsible for helping develop the strength of a nation and its people. He gave back to his society by setting up the Asan Foundation, whose philanthropic activities ranged from medical support and social welfare programs to research, development, and scholarship funds. Chung was also active politically, working tirelessly at the end of his life to promote economic...