President Lee Jae Myung’s office on Sunday announced a new lineup of senior staff in a broad reshuffle, as Lee begins the second year of his five-year term.
The new Cheong Wa Dae staff appointments, which are equivalent to vice ministerial-level posts, are aimed at “speedy implementation” of the Lee administration’s second-year policy goals, Lee’s chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik said at a press briefing.
Lee tapped Seong Ghi-hong, the former head of South Korea’s largest news agency Yonhap, as the new senior presidential secretary for public relations and communication, replacing Lee Kyu-youn.
Seong, 57, worked as a journalist for more than 30 years before joining the presidential office. Kang said Seong “possesses a keen sense of the reporting field as a journalist, as well as the balanced viewpoint and sharp eye required of a news director.”
Han Chan-sik, a former prosecutor currently working as an attorney at Kim & Chang, was tapped as the senior presidential secretary for civil affairs. Han, 57, will replace Bong Wook, who had served in the position since July.
Han is the right person to help ensure the smooth implementation of reforms aimed at limiting prosecutors' power, Kang said.
Korea is poised to split up the prosecutors’ office in October. Currently, prosecutors have the authority both to investigate major crimes and indict suspects, powers that the liberal bloc says have been abused.
Han was a career prosecutor who left the prosecution after his junior colleague Yoon Suk Yeol became prosecutor general in 2019. Yoon later became president in 2022, but was ousted following his declaration of martial law on Dec. 3, 2024.
Meanwhile, Kim Kyoung-ja, a visiting professor at Woosuk University, was named Lee’s new senior secretary for social policy.
Kim, 59, previously held a senior post at the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, South Korea’s largest umbrella labor group. She will replace Moon Jin-young.
Cheong Wa Dae described Kim as a person capable of “solving social challenges so that no one is excluded” from the opportunities and benefits of South Korea’s economic growth.
New vice ministerial-level senior staff were also announced for the presidential National Security Office.
Kang Gun-jark, a retired Army lieutenant general, will serve as the first deputy director of the National Security Office.
Kang is a member of the Presidential Committee on Future Defense Strategy. Before his retirement, he led the Army Training and Doctrine Command. Kang will succeed Kim Hyun-jong in the post.
Song Ki-ho, presidential secretary for economic security, will be promoted to the third deputy director of the National Security Office, succeeding Oh Hyun-joo.
According to chief of staff Kang, the presidential office has yet to confirm whom it will appoint as senior presidential secretary for artificial intelligence and future planning. The post was previously held by Ha Jung-woo, who stepped down in April to run in the June parliamentary by-election.
“Over the past year, the administration has focused on overcoming the shock and chaos that followed (Yoon’s) insurrection,” Kang said at the briefing.
He also said now is the time to “further accelerate the pace of achieving major state affairs goals,” which he said would turn South Korea into a global diplomatic powerhouse externally and a normalized society internally.
Later on Sunday, Cheong Wa Dae's chief spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said Nam Jae-heon was tapped as the vice minister of the Oceans Ministry. Nam has been a senior official dedicated to Seoul's move to explore Arctic shipping routes.
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