Sovereign wealth fund Korea Investment Corp. said Tuesday that Jin Seung-ho, the former presidential adviser for balanced national development, had started his three-year term as its chief executive officer.

Jin is the eighth CEO of South Korea’s only sovereign wealth fund, overseeing $183.1 billion worth of dollar-denominated assets entrusted by the Bank of Korea and the Finance Ministry as of 2020. He succeeded Choi Hee-nam, whose three-year term started in 2018.

In an inaugural speech at the fund’s headquarters in Seoul, Jin called for “innovative investment with dexterity and resilience” so that the institution can weather the uncertainties in the global financial market.

He added that the sovereign wealth fund was poised to carry out “highly calibrated responsible investing” in line with the global investment scene to achieve climate finance.

Before taking the top post, Jin headed the Executive Office of the Presidential Committee for Balanced National Development from 2019 to 2021. Jin was previously a career bureaucrat in the Finance Ministry starting in 1989 and was a policy adviser to the ruling Democratic Party from 2017 to 2019.

Since it was founded in 2005, the Korea Investment Corp. has reaped an accumulated $71 billion return on investment. Its assets under management have doubled over the past five years.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)