Jay Y. Lee

Lee Jae-yong, or Jay Lee, is the executive chairman of Samsung Electronics and South Korea’s richest person. Lee had long been groomed for power and was raised, educated, and trained to take over from his father, Lee Kun-hee, at the company founded by his grandfather. He had been operating as the group’s de facto leader since 2014, when his father fell into a coma after a heart attack. The company’s leadership was tarred by a bribery scandal in 2017, however, a case that was tied to the corruption scandal of South Korea’s former President Park Geun-hye. Though Lee served detention and a stint in jail, he was granted a special presidential pardon in 2022 and returned to lead Samsung. In early 2025, Lee was acquitted in a separate case regarding accounting fraud, meaning he’s now free of legal challenges for the first time in a decade. While Samsung remains one of the world’s top electronics manufacturers, its stock has been under pressure as it continues to fall behind other chip companies like TSMC.