Park Jin-soo, vice chairman and chief executive officer of LG Chem, was chosen as the country‘s best-performing CEO during the first half of this year, according to market researcher CEO Score on Wednesday.

The research firm released the 500 Top CEO rankings among the companies with 5 trillion won ($4.5 billion) in sales. 

Vice Chairman Park won 68 out of 100 points while the average score for the CEOs surveyed was 52.5.

CEO Score tracked the performance of 363 executives who have been in the job more than six months from 268 companies that have been operating more than three years by analyzing year-on-year sales growth, the compound annual growth rate in the last three years, return on equity, debt ratio and employment growth rate. Each measurement accounts for 20 percent.

Park ranked seventh last year.

He improved in almost all categories except for debt ratio. His performance was particularly backed by the employment growth.

Following Park was Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo who heads Hyundai Mobis as its CEO. Kia Motors co-CEOs Lee Hyoung-Keun and Park Han-woo, also came in second with 67.5. 

Mirae Assets Capital CEO Kim Sung-kun was ranked fourth and the three co-CEOs of Samsung Electronics -- Kwon Oh-hyun, Shin Jong-kyun and Yoon Boo-Keun – came in fifth.

Meanwhile, CEOs from smaller companies received better scores.

Among the companies that have less than 5 trillion won in their total sales, Koo Han-seo, CEO of Tongyang Life Insurance Co., was named the best CEO with a score of 75. Koo obtained the full score for the sales growth as the insurer’s revenue jumped in the first half of the year after Chinese insurer Anbang Insurance Group Co. acquired a controlling stake of Tongyang in August 2015.

The second in the ranking for smaller companies was co-CEOs of SK Gas Ltd., Choi Chang-won and Kim Jeong Keun. Suh Kyung-bae and Sim Sang-bae of AmorePacific Group and Mirae Asset Securities Co. President Cho Woong-ki ranked third together.

The 500 CEOs list was compiled by CEO Score, a company specialized in data collection of South Korea’s 500 companies and conglomerates.

By Park Ga-young  (gypark@heraldcorp.com)