Samsung pays highest salaries to outside directors: Data

According to CEO Score, Samsung Electronics paid an average of 183.3 million won (US$126,000) per outside director in 2024, the highest among 247 companies surveyed out of the country's top 500 firms by market capitalisation.

Despite this leading position, the figure marked a 9.8 percent decline from the previous year, reports Yonhap news agency.

The average salary was calculated by dividing the total payroll for outside directors by the annual average number of directors employed by the company, CEO Score added.

Following Samsung Electronics, SK Telecom Co. ranked second with an average salary of 156.8 million won. SK hynix Inc. recorded 153.7 million won, followed by SK Corp. with 152 million won and SK Square Co. with 146 million won.

A total of 29 companies provided annual salaries of 100 million won or more on average to their outside directors last year.

Among them, 26 were affiliates of South Korea's top four business groups -- Samsung, SK, Hyundai Motor and LG.

Samsung Group led the list with 13 affiliates offering high outside director salaries, followed by SK Group with nine affiliates. Hyundai Motor Group and LG Group each had two affiliates on the list.

Meanwhile, Samsung said one of its officials has been elected chair of a key technical group under the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a leading international telecommunications standards development organisation.

At a recent plenary session, Kim Youn-sun at Samsung Research, an information technology (IT), and telecommunications research and development (R&D) arm of Samsung Electronics, was picked as the head of the Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network (TSG RAN) within 3GPP, according to Samsung Electronics. His two-year term will start in May.