Five months in, Gongnyeong Home Shopping chief's future uncertain amid merger plan

Questions are mounting over the future of Lee Il-yong, the five-month-old president of Gongnyeong Home Shopping, after the government announced plans to merge the public broadcaster with the Korea SME and Venture Business Distribution Agency, known as Hanyuwon. While the government has pledged to guarantee job security for rank-and-file employees at institutions subject to consolidation, executives have been explicitly excluded from that protection.

Under a public institution reform plan announced Thursday by relevant ministries, the government will merge Gongnyeong Home Shopping and Hanyuwon — both under the Ministry of SMEs and Startups — to establish a new body tentatively named the Korea SME Marketing Promotion Agency.

The government selected institutions for consolidation from among mid- to large-sized agencies with authorized headcounts of 100 or more, focusing on cases where functions were excessively fragmented or where the work of separate agencies was closely interlinked. Gongnyeong Home Shopping has an authorized headcount of 379, while Hanyuwon has 295.

The government determined that the two agencies' functions in supporting sales channels for small and medium-sized enterprises were closely connected. Going forward, it plans to combine Hanyuwon's policy role in SME market-access support with Gongnyeong Home Shopping's TV and online sales channel operations, building a unified retail platform covering everything from product discovery and consulting to onboarding, sales and performance management.

The announcement has drawn attention to the future of Lee, who took office in March. He was appointed president of Gongnyeong Home Shopping at a shareholder meeting on March 26, with a three-year term running through March 2029 — roughly two years and seven months still remaining.

Lee is a home shopping industry veteran who previously served as head of the support and broadcasting divisions at Lotte Home Shopping, sales division chief at Lotte Shopping's e-commerce unit, and both sales head and chief executive at Home and Shopping. Gongnyeong Home Shopping appointed him to end a leadership vacuum of about a year and a half that followed the departure of former President Jo Seong-ho in September 2024. Now, just five months after Lee took office, the company itself has been earmarked for consolidation, casting doubt on whether he will serve out his term.

The government's reform plan guarantees job continuity for employees at institutions subject to merger, with provisions to maintain compensation levels before and after consolidation and to review benefits and performance incentive schemes. However, executives are explicitly excluded from the job-continuity guarantee. The plan states that "employment succession is guaranteed for employees (excluding executives) of institutions subject to consolidation."

Whether the incumbent heads and other executives of Gongnyeong Home Shopping and Hanyuwon will retain their positions at the newly established Korea SME Marketing Promotion Agency is expected to be decided through future merger discussions.

At Hanyuwon, President Lee Tae-sik's official term has already ended. He took office in April 2023 and completed his three-year term on April 13, but has continued in the role as no successor has been named. Hanyuwon launched an open recruitment process for a new president last month and has closed the application window. A Hanyuwon official said there had been no changes to the situation.

A Ministry of SMEs and Startups official said Thursday that no specific decisions had been made regarding the Gongnyeong Home Shopping president's future. "It seems that reviews and discussions will need to take place through internal procedures," the official said.

To advance the consolidations, the government will have each ministry draw up detailed functional reform plans for the relevant agencies and seek approval from the Public Institutions Policy Committee. Legislation requiring new laws or amendments will be coordinated with the National Assembly, and the government also plans to hold parallel consultations with labor-management bodies and individual agency unions.