Im Il-soon, the first housewife CEO in the sole distribution industry, leaves Homeplus

Im Il-soon, CEO of Homeplus, will retire. It has been 3 years and 3 months since MBK Partners, a global private equity fund, was appointed as Homeplus’s’saving pitcher’. It is known that it is handing over’Bathong’ for another leap as it laid the foundation for online and offline integration, such as leading online sales exceeding KRW 1 trillion.

According to the distribution and IB industry on the 7th, CEO Lim announced his intention to resign at the executive meeting this morning. It is reported that the final consultation with MBK Partners, the shareholder, has also been completed. The retirement date is expected to be around the middle of this month, the date of final approval for the business strategy for the 2021 fiscal year (March 2021 to February 2022).

CEO Lim has expressed his gratitude to MBK Partners since about 3 months ago. Regarding the reason, it is known that Lim is only saying that it is a “personal reason.” Representative Lim revealed at the executive meeting that he retired and said, “I am sorry to the executives and employees and shareholders for leaving in an important and difficult time. We ask that the remaining executives and employees continue to carry out the raised strategy well so that Homeplus can continue its new growth momentum.”

It is reported that MBK has always rejected the resignation since it has sent absolute confidence in the expertise of CEO Lim, a former CFO (Chief Financial Officer) of Costco Korea. An official at Homeplus said, “Until yesterday, we had an executive meeting for the 2020 management plan,” and “I am embarrassed because it is so sudden.”

Until a successor representative is appointed, Homeplus will operate as a system in which business division heads jointly make decisions for the time being. An official from the IB industry said, “MBK Partners is urgently inquiring for the successor of CEO Lim,” and said, “It is not easy to find a person like Representative Lim with rich distribution and financial experience.” With the decision to resign, Lim, who has been attracting attention as a’housewife CEO’, returns to a normal mart customer.

Representative Lim made a relationship with Homeplus in November 2015 as Head of Finance (CFO, Vice President). Two years later, in May 2017, he became the head of the management support division (COO, senior vice president), and in October of the same year, he was promoted to the chief executive officer (CEO).

The modifier’first’ always followed him. Lim is the first female CEO in the distribution industry, including the domestic hypermarket industry. He was the first to break the’glass ceiling’ among the people except the owner family, and he became a hot topic.

In 2019, about 15,000 non-contract employees were converted to regular workers. It was the largest in Korea at the time. Currently, Homeplus has been reborn as a company with 99% of all employees who are regular employees.

There were many reactions that CEO Lim’s decision was unexpected even within the hypermarket industry. This is because it did not establish a separate subsidiary to allocate contract workers or create a separate job group. At that time, out of the 23,000 employees of Homeplus, the proportion of regular workers amounted to 99% (22,900).

In terms of business, President Lim is evaluated for converting Homeplus, which is centered on offline hypermarkets, into an’all-line future distribution company’ that is integrated with online during his three years and three months as CEO.

Offline, the store successfully launched the’Homeplus Special’, an efficient model that combines the advantages of warehouse-type discount stores and hypermarkets. In particular, it is evaluated that it has succeeded in strategizing all offline stores as online logistics bases.

Some say that CEO Lim may have influenced his appreciation by the harsh environment surrounding the hypermarket. Homeplus recorded a net loss of 53.2 billion won in the fiscal year 2019. Operating profit also decreased from 3209 billion won in 2016 to 109.1 billion won in 2018.

CEO Lim has complained about the unprecedented regulatory environment for hypermarkets worldwide. Representative Lim used to say that “data-based product sourcing, inventory management, and logistics processing are essential for the distribution industry including large marts to live.” It is for this reason that Homeplus devoted its full power to algorithm development while converting some of its stores into distribution facilities.

However, homeplus and other large domestic supermarkets are bound by the Distribution Industry Development Act, which prohibits business after 12 pm. This means that unlike online competitors such as Coupang and Market Curly, early morning delivery is not possible at all.

Homeplus is also struggling to restructure its stores. Taking advantage of his career as a CFO of a global company, CEO Lim promoted a plan to attract foreign investment by making homeplus stores nationwide in 2019 as REITs (a mutual fund specializing in real estate investment). I was blocked by the opposition of. A Homeplus official said, “When we went to the US and Europe for investment briefings, global investors showed great interest in remodeling the Homeplus store in the middle of the city into a complex space.” It would have been possible to provide high-quality real estate products.”

Reporter Park Donghui [email protected]