Hero of the Koreans

Success Stories About The Founder of Hyundai Empire

Born the son of oppressed peasants, industrialist Chung Ju-Yung, founder of the Hyundai industrial empire, pulled post-war Korea out of poverty and ruin while building his own fortune. A man who employed more than 170,000 of his fellow Koreans and attained folk-hero status for his philanthropy and efforts to reunite his nation, Chung Ju-Yung died in Seoul, South Korea on March 21st, 2001 from complications of pneumonia.

Undoubtedly the wealthiest man in Korea by the 1990s, Chung Ju-Yung was born on November 25th, 1915, the eldest of the eight children of poor tenant farmers in Asan, Tongchon, in what later became North Korea. Chung's formal education ended in elementary school, when his father withdrew him and set him to the task of helping to provide for his seven younger siblings. Initially a laborer on the family farm, Chung was later sent to work as a railway construction laborer and then as a dock hand for a barge owner by the time most modern youth would be entering junior high school, his wages taken by his parents to feed the family. Chung made several attempts to run away from his Tongchon home, and was twice brought back and disciplined before a third attempt, around 1932 was successful. Chung financed his 120 mile trek to Seoul by selling one of his father's cows, arriving in the city around the age of 16. (That life long guilt later prompted him to send 1.500 heads of cattle to the North as a humanitarian gesture in 1998.)

Chung supported himself by peddling rice for a Seoul vendor in 1934, learning the edicts of Confucius and hoarding his wages until he purchased the rice shop he had worked for in 1937. When the Japanese (who occupied Korea until 1945) made it illegal for Koreans to own such critical food trades as rice shops because of the implementation of a rice rationing system under the military-control order of Japanese forces, his firm was forced to be shutdown. Chung became a truck driver, then owner of his own delivery service. That led Chung to operate an automobile repair shop. He then opened a garage and repair firm, the "Ah-do Service" auto repair shop in Seoul in March, 1940, establishing the rigid work ethic and demand for quality upon which he built a multinational empire. In 1946 Chung, then 31 years old, launched the Hyundai Auto Service in Seoul, his first company financing Hyundai Togun (later renamed Engineering and Construction) as well as Hyundai Motors in 1967. With the help of his younger brother Chung In-yung, who worked as an interpreter for a U.S. engineering battalion, Chung Ju-yung secured several construction projects for U.S. troops stationed here. By 1960, Hyundai had emerged as Korea's No. 1 construction company.

Chung's business ventures flourished in part because he found favor with South Korean leader Park Ching Hee. Park granted Chung and Hyundai many government building and military contracts after becoming impressed with the Chung work ethic. Park discovered, during a surprise plant inspection, that it was Chung's custom to begin work before dawn after walking 3 miles to his office from a modest seven room home he had built with surplus construction materials, and that the shirtsleeves corporate head often put in 16 hour days. Chung regularly used the profits from his existing businesses to build his new ventures, as well as his almost relentless "can do" attitude, exemplified by a 1972 business milestone. Chung took the first order for his shipbuilding business, Hyundai Heavy Industries, a super tanker for the Hong Kong trade giant CT Tung, before he had even built his own ship yard. CT Tung received their tanker on time.

Chung, who with his wife Byun Jung-Suk had eight sons and a daughter, brought his boys into the conglomerate, which, in the 1980s lived up to its name (Hyundai being the Korean equivalent of "Modern") by entering electronics manufacturing. By then the largest family-owned business empire (Chaebol) in Korea, Hyundai had literally as well as figuratively rebuilt a nation which, a generation earlier, had been devastated by war. In addition to Hyundai Engineering (construction), Hyundai Motors (Korea's largest auto manufacturer after absorbing Kia), Hyundai Merchant Marine (shipping) and oil interests, Chung developed Hyundai Electronics into the world's second largest manufacture of computer chips in less than 10 years. Chung parlayed much of Hyundai's profits into philanthropic or civic benefit ventures throughout Korea, building hospitals, schools, and apartment complexes for Hyundai workers.

In 1977 Chung was one of the civilian forces at the head of the effort to rebuild the war torn cities of Vietnam, and was made an honorary Commander of the British Empire by England's Queen Elizabeth II. Chung also received the Order of Merit from the governments of China and the nation of Zaire, and in 1982 stood as the first non-American entrepreneur and philanthropist to receive an honorary degree in business from George Washington University. In his homeland, Chung spent more than ten years leading the Federation of Korean Industries. Chung was also credited with the successful negotiations to hold the 1988 Olympic games in Seoul.

Chung's life and career were not without trials- in at least one instance, literally. In 1982, Chung's first born son and the traditional heir to the leadership position of his business empire, Chung Mong Pi, was killed in an automobile accident, a tragedy worsened by a first bout of squabbling among Chung's sons over the future of the family fortune. In 1990 Chung's fourth son, Chung Mong Woo committed suicide. When the long reigning head of the Hyundai empire chose to retire as the conglomerate's chairman (he remained a highly influential Honorary Chairman and controlling share holder in the public company) Chung endured an embarrassing publicly played out power struggle between his eldest surviving sons, who he had appointed joint chairmen.

Chung finally intervened when the squabble began to affect the company's finances: Elder son Mong Koo was made chair of the Hyundai Motor Group, his next son Mong Jun was appointed head of the Hyundai Heavy Industries Corporation, and Chung brought in his son Mong Hun to oversee the electrical division. One of Chung's younger brothers took the reigns of Hyundai's automotive interests in the United States, which he had chartered in the 1980s. In all Hyundai held some 50 subsidiaries and industrial divisions as of 2000.

Chung suffered a political disappointment in 1992 when his bid to revitalize Korea's economy by becoming President failed at the polls. Chung's campaign loss had deeper effect than a disappointing show of voter support: Chung was subject of an investigation by the new government, which placed an ongoing tax audit on his companies and found him guilty of charges of campaign impropriety, using some $81 million of Hyundai funds to finance his presidential campaign. Blasted in the media, Chung was sentenced to a prison term of three years, which was suspended in light of his advanced age at sentencing (around 80) and his frail health. Chung, who espoused the Confucian maxim "there are no failures, only setbacks" moved forward to promote the reunification of North and South Korea, working with leaders of both nations to promote joint industry and tourism projects that would benefit both countries, particularly destitute North Korea.

In 1998, Chung became the first civilian South Korean to enter North Korea without a military escort. At that historic juncture, which garnered international media coverage, Chung, 83 years old, led a cow across the border at Panmunjam, site of the war end truce, while his sons followed with another 500 head of cattle that were donated to feed Chung's old village of Asan. Chung declared that the gift to the impoverished township was his repayment for the theft of his father's cow more than 60 years earlier. Chung additionally received permission to establish businesses and a hospital in the district for the care of its people.

In the year that followed his retirement from Hyundai, the conglomerate was fractionalized in compliance with Korean government policies put in place in the face of a national financial crisis. The 85 year old Chung Ju-Yung, who had been in deteriorating health, was admitted to Seoul's Asan Medical Center, one he himself had built, during the first week of March 2001. Admitted with a critical case of pneumonia, Chung Ju-Yung's condition worsened. He died in his sleep at hospital, in the company of his family, on March 21st, 2001.

Scheduled for interment on March 25th, 2001 after a traditional period of mourning, Chung Ju-Yung was mourned as a national hero in Korea as the man credited with rebuilding a war torn and impoverished nation split by ideologies. Hyundai officials revealed that in keeping with his observance that "he had come empty handed and he would leave empty handed", Chung Ju-Yung had bequeathed more than $57 million to the business he had founded in 1946. Chung Ju-Yung was survived at his death by his wife Byun Joong-Suk, sons Mong Joon, Mong Koo, Mong Kun, Mong Yun, Mong Hun, and Mong Il, his daughter Kyung Hee, four brothers, a sister, and a number of grandchildren.

Chung Mong Koo

Current Chairman, Hyundai Motor Co