Kim Sung-joo, seasoned businesswoman and head of Sungjoo Group, on Thursday expanded her area of expertise to politics by taking up the joint helm of leading Saenuri Party’s election campaign team.

“Kim is an international CEO, and someone who has much insight and capacity,” the party’s presidential candidate Park Geun-hye said regarding the appointment.

Kim is well known both at home and abroad for her bold moves in the fashion industry that led to the inflow of prominent foreign brands to the country as early as the late 1980s when she opened the first Gucci store in Busan.

Kim has also spoken up on the responsibility of women in society and business, once making headlines for claiming that not only men, but women should also be conscripted for mandatory military service to make them stronger. 

In a lecture in 2010, she lamented how women of privileged classes appeared to be whiling away their time gossiping at hotel restaurants.

Kim herself was not afraid to take on challenges.

In the late 1990s, amid the Asian financial crisis, the chairwoman was forced to make the difficult decision to sell off her company’s premium brands in order to secure more liquidity.

With the cash, Kim acquired MCM, a German leather goods brand. She eventually took over its struggling German headquarters despite that many wrote off the move as reckless, refusing to believe that a little-known Korean company would be capable of turning around a European fashion brand.

MCM is now generating annual sales of 200 billion won, up from 10 billion won in 2000.

For this and other achievements, Kim made it to the Wall Street Journal’s 2004 list of “50 Women to Watch.”

Kim is the youngest daughter of Daesung Group founder Kim Soo-keun. After completing her studies and a stint at New York City’s Bloomingdale’s department store, the junior Kim returned home to head the company’s fashion department.

Sungjoo Group currently has the brands MCM and Marks & Spencer under its wing.

By Kim Ji-hyun (jemmie@heraldcorp.com)