Samsung's new round of management promotions exposes the company's lack of diversity

Samsung's latest round of annual promotions highlighted the company's lack of diversity, with only a handful of foreign and female employees promoted, Nikkei Asia reported.

Samsung promoted 214 executives in its annual personnel changes, the most in three years, but only 13 of them were women, or 6%, and only four were non-Korean.

Samsung's lack of diversity is also reflected in its board of directors. Among the company's 11-member board, there are only two women and one foreigner. The other eight are Korean men aged 57 or above.

Samsung fell behind its South Korean peers in a recent ranking of companies that excel in gender equality, according to Women in Innovation, a Seoul-based organization for female business leaders, and CEO Score, a corporate analytics firm. Samsung was not on the list of 27 companies released last October.

WIN and CEO Score evaluated six criteria: employment, years of work, compensation, executives, board directors and senior management ratio. Naver, AmorePacific and Kakao ranked in the top 10, with more than a quarter of managers and executives being women.

Score CEO Park Ju-keun said Samsung needs to improve on diversity given its position on the global stage.

WIN said the key is not just the number of female executives, but also giving women more opportunities to become managers so they can pursue higher positions later.

"South Korean companies need to support female employees to continue working as managers so they have the opportunity to be promoted to executive or higher-level positions," said Hwang Ji-na, president of WIN. "We found that female employees were overlooked in terms of salary and promotion even if they were in the same position as men at the beginning."

The 214 promotions equate to nearly a quarter of Samsung's executive ranks. Of the 17 women and non-Koreans on the list, Samsung promoted 10 foreigners and women, up from nine in the last round of promotions in January but down from 11 two years ago.

Samsung said in a statement that as part of its diversity and inclusion strategy, Samsung Electronics has opened its doors more broadly to foreigners and women, which contributes to innovation and sustainable development.

Global diversity standards are being strengthened. Nasdaq last week submitted a proposal to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to adopt new listing rules on board diversity and disclosure. If approved, the rules would require most Nasdaq-listed companies to have at least two diverse directors or explain why they don't. But there's still a long way to go for Korean companies.