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[WSJ] Most Powerful Living Korean? Forbes Says It’s Not Kim or Park

November 17, 2014

Samsung Jay Y. Lee, middle, walks ahead of his sisters Boo-jin, left, and Seo-hyun. (Korea Times file)

Samsung chairman’s heir apparent Jay Y. Lee, middle, walks ahead of his sisters Boo-jin, left, and Seo-hyun. (Korea Times file)

[THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]

The recent disappearance of Kim Jong Un sparked a frenzy of speculation about his possible loss of power. His reappearance several weeks later sucked the air out of most of those theories, but according to one analysis he’s not the most powerful living Korean.

The Forbes’ power list, released recently by the business magazine and billed as an “annual snapshot of the heads of state, CEOs, financiers, philanthropists and entrepreneurs who truly run the world,” pegs Mr. Kim as the 49^th most powerful person on the planet out of a list of 72 movers and shakers.

As the younger Mr. Kim has slipped on the Forbes list, his democratically elected counterpart south of the inter-Korean border has leapfrogged him. Park Geun-hye is ranked 46^th by Forbes in 2014, up from 52^nd spot in the previous year when she became South Korean president.

Forbes rates two other people as the most powerful living Koreans: Lee Kun-hee, the chairman of Samsung Electronics Co., and his son and heir apparent, Jay Y. Lee. The men are positioned at joint 35^th spot on the latest power list. [READ MORE]