When Hyosung disclosed its first-quarter earnings report on April 25, analysts poured out reports on how the company’s profits exceeded market expectations, and its stock price surged 8 percent the next day.

The world’s largest spandex maker’s net profit jumped 27 percent on-year to 161.1 billion won ($143.9 million) in the first three months. Most of additional earnings came from profits from fiber, industrial materials, expanded production capacities for polypropylene and more efficiency in the construction business.

Officially taking the baton from his father S.R. Cho to lead the Korea’s textile giant in January, Hyosung Chairman Cho Hyun-joon led the company to discover new markets in key businesses with his natural-born cultural curiosity and global mindedness, rather than squeezing out more profit from existing capabilities, observers said.

Fluent in English, Japanese and Italian, Cho is said to have a wide range of interests including politics, culture and social issues.

He majored in politics at Yale University and received a master’s degree in politics from Keio University Law School in 1996 in Japan.

Before joining Hyosung in 1997, he also worked at Japan’s Mitsubishi International and the Tokyo office of Morgan Stanley.

After his father promoted business ties between Korea and Japan as the chairman of the Korea-Japan Economic Association in 2005-2014, Cho attended a meeting of the association in May 2015 as a panelist to suggest that business leaders in the two countries cooperate in information and communications technologies industry.

By Kim Yoon-mi (yoonmi@heraldcorp.com)