FROM: Daesung Group

     - He will to be the chair in 2016 after serving as a co-chair for three years
     - The first Korean head of an international energy-related organization will help  
        enhance the country’s national image

The chairman of Daesung Group, Younghoon David Kim is making his inaugural address as co-chair of WEC.

[October 17, 2013] Daesung Group Chairman Younghoon David Kim has inaugurated as co-chair of the World Energy Council on October 17, the last day of World Energy Congress Daegu 2013. He was elected co-chair at the WEC Executive Assembly in Monaco last November. Kim will serve as a co-chair of the WEC for three years and in 2016, be sworn in as the sole chair without additional election and serve a three-year term. 

Kim’s inauguration as co-chair of the WEC is expected to help Korea, which has been seen as a peripheral area in the global energy industry, improve its national image and raise its voice. Kim’s appointment drew attention since he, as the head of an international organization, has been following in the footsteps of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Jim Yong Kim World Bank Group President. 

Before he was selected as the co-chair, for six years from 2005 to 2011, Kim, as a vice-chair of the WEC, brought up issues of energy poverty in developing countries, built a connection link between the WEC and other international organizations including the U.N. and the APEC to cooperate in energy and environmental issues, and made various other achievements. During the election of a co-chair at the last Executive Assembly, such efforts and contributions must have attracted the biggest supports. 

Kim first suggested Korea’s hosting of the World Energy Congress after he was elected the vice-chair of the WEC in 2004 and has aggressively taken part in activities for hosting and preparing the event. On top of that, He as a co-chair for international relations of the WEC Daegu 2013 Organizing Committee has played a key role to make the congress the biggest event ever in the WEC history. 

Kim’s inauguration is also expected to help Asian nations, as well as Korea, raise their voices in the global energy sector. Though Asia is now rapidly emerging as the world’s biggest energy market, its influence is relatively weaker due to the supplier-centered market structure than oil producing nations and Europe and North American countries which hold global energy companies.  

Kim said in time of his inauguration, “WEC is a platform that enables sharing of reliable information between various stakeholders from all countries around the world, including developed and developing countries, as well as energy exporting and importing countries.” He also added, “I will strive for leadership that can stabilize multi-aspects of the energy market’s supply, demand and price by building trust and sharing information.” 

On the same day, Marie-José Nadeau Executive Vice President of Canada’s biggest electric power company Hydro-Québec has been sworn in as Chair of the WEC following the outgoing Pierre Gadonneix. Nadeu will serve a three-year term as Chair ahead of Kim.