■ Chairman of the Board Kim Jong-hoon introduces the current corporate governance to ACGA and the members

– Had direct discussions with and received feedback from the market focused on the corporate governance, the core of Board of Directors-centered ESG management.

■ “We will go beyond achieving ESG and enhancing corporate value and secure a global model governance,” said Chairman Kim Jong-hoon

SK Innovation introduced its reformed governance jointly built by the company and the board of directors to the evaluation agencies and institutional investors in a bid to communicate with the market. This is a part of their efforts to reinforce their model governance system to complete their ESG management system.

SK Innovation has revealed on the 8^th that Chairman of the Board of Directors (BOD) Kim Jong-hoon hosted a session where he introduced the history of the board-centered management and current issues to the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA) and its members to receive feedbacks for further enhancing the governance. The briefing event took place on August 4^th.

SK Innovation is cooperating with the board for the overall ESG programs – to better communicate with the market. Their endeavors include: hosting Story Day presenting its green growth strategies; releasing the Net Zero Roadmap that contains the detailed action plans for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction; and publishing the ESG Report, an expanding version of the existing Sustainability Report with a focus on ESG.

ACGA is a nonprofit organization established to implement effective corporate governance practices in Asia. It analyzes corporate governance developments, announces rankings, holds seminars and publishes reports regularly to review the current state and develop improvement plans.

ACGA includes more than institutions, including large institutional investors such as APG Asset, BlackRock, BMO Global Asset Management, Fidelity, Hermes Fund Managers, JP Morgan Asset Management, Manulife Invest management, and UBS Asset Management. As the corporate governance of SK Innovation drew a lot of attention in the market, many institutional investors attended the company’s briefing event.

Chairman Kim Jong-hoon explained the process and current stage of governance reformation in detail. He pointed out, “Korean companies score lower than those of other developed countries in the field of governance, which causes devaluation in the stock market.” “To improve this, SK innovation switched to the Independent Director board chairperson system in 2019, and from this year, the BOD exercises the voting rights related to the CEO’s evaluation and remuneration succession (performance evaluation, remuneration determination, appointment),” he added.

Chairman Kim emphasized, “We will continue to strengthen the independence and professionalism of the BOD and play a leading role in enhancing corporate value by accelerating the implementation of a financial story that transforms the existing ‘carbon’-centered business structure into a ‘green business’.”

After explaining the current state of corporate governance, Chairman Kim held a Q&A and feedback session with the investors to improve its corporate governance further. He promised that SK Innovation will refer to the market’s opinion to make the ESG management more concrete and transparent.

“I was able to see how SK Innovation invested in-house resources, time, and effort to drive an authentic change in the ESG management,” said Director of APG Park Yoo-kyung, who had attended the event. “I hope the company will continue to communicate with us openly like this,” she added.

“Establishing corporate governance is an important starting point internally for fulfilling ESG management and enhancing corporate value, and it is also an essential requirement for being recognized as a first-class company by stakeholders around the world.” “SK Innovation will continue to create innovations to become a company internationally recognized for its successful governance, beyond Asia,” said Chairman Kim Jong-hoon.

[Photo]

Chairman of SK Innovation’s Board of Directors Kim Jong-hoon introduces the current corporate governance to ACGA on August 4^th at SK Seorin Building, Seoul, South Korea