Shinsegae Department Store in Jung District, central Seoul / Korea Times file

By Kim Jae-heun

Ahead of regular executive appointments scheduled for the end of this year, tension is rising internally at Korea's big three retailers: Shinsegae, Lotte Shopping and Hyundai Department Store.

Starbucks Korea CEO Song Ho-seop

Companies have been agonizing over whether or not to keep their CEOs amid the current uncertain business environment caused by high inflation and the depreciation of the Korean currency against the U.S. dollar.

Last year, Shinsegae conducted a reshuffle of its top executives during the first week of October. However, the retail giant has pushed this year's reshuffle to the end of October.

What people are most curious about with Shinsegae is if Starbucks Korea CEO Song Ho-seop will continue to serve out his term next year, as the American coffee chain has recently been caught promoting giveaway picnic bags, which contain a cancer-causing agent. Song's term was originally contracted to end in 2025.

Due to this incident, the CEO was summoned to a National Assembly audit session on Oct. 4 and he will be called in again today. Starbucks Korea is operated under Shinsegae's subsidiary, SCK Company.

Emart CEO Kang Heui-seok

Emart CEO Kang Heui-seok's future does not look promising either. He played a key role in successfully acquiring eBay Korea last year, but the large discount store chain's business performance has been declining since the second quarter of this year. Emart's operating loss reached 12.3 billion won ($8.6 million) between April and June.

Lotte Shopping, Lotte Group's retail unit, will make changes to its personnel two to three weeks earlier this year. Lotte has sought to recruit several top executives from outside the company as candidates to lead its online business. It is unknown if the company will continue to entrust the business to outsiders or bring back insiders as it used to. All of the CEOs of Lotte Mart, Lotte Confectionery and Lotte Chilsung Beverage are contracted until March 2023.

The Hyundai Premium Outlet in Daejeon in this picture shows the building on fire on Sept. 16. Korea Times file

In the case of Hyundai Department Store, it is expected that the company will inevitably make big changes in its personnel as a major fire at its shopping mall occurred in Daejeon in September. Still, many predict that the current three CEOs, including group Chairman Chung Ji-sun, will remain in their positions as their contracts end in March 2024.