SK On CEO Lee Seok-hee Steps Down After Completing Ford JV Exit; Lee Yong-wook Takes Sole Helm

2026년 5월 29일

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SK On CEO Lee Seok-hee Steps Down After Completing Ford JV Exit; Lee Yong-wook Takes Sole Helm

SK On President and Chief Executive Lee Seok-hee will step down at the end of May 2026, the South Korean electric-vehicle battery maker said Thursday, handing a leaner sole-leadership structure to manufacturing veteran Lee Yong-wook — days after completing the dissolution of its troubled joint venture with Ford Motor Company.

In a letter to employees dated May 28, Lee said he had been weighing whether to continue in the role since late 2025, delayed only by the need to see the BlueOval SK restructuring through to completion. "It has been a great honor to work alongside all of you at the center of the battery industry," he wrote, citing health and stamina concerns as the reason for his exit.

On May 20–21, Ford Motor completed the previously announced dissolution of its BlueOval SK stake — surrendering an obligation to contribute up to $6.6 billion in capital — while SK On assumed sole ownership of the 4-million-square-foot battery plant at Stanton, Tennessee, rechristened SK On Tennessee. Ford separately took full control of two Kentucky facilities. Both companies say a "strategic partnership" for battery supply to Ford's future electrified vehicles will continue.

The transition leaves Lee Yong-wook in charge of a business still in recovery mode. SK On posted an operating loss of ₩349.2 billion (approximately $256 million) on revenue of ₩1.79 trillion in the first quarter of 2026, though losses narrowed sequentially and revenue rose 23% from the prior quarter, helped by regional sales recovery and company-wide cost reduction. Low utilization rates at North American plants remain the primary drag.

Lee Seok-hee, who holds advanced degrees from Stanford University and spent roughly a decade at Intel researching semiconductor processes, arrived at SK On in early 2024 after leading SK Hynix as president and CEO from 2018 to 2021 — a tenure best known for orchestrating the $9 billion acquisition of Intel's NAND flash storage business, which created what became SK Hynix's solid-state drive division.

His successor, Lee Yong-wook, joined SK On from SK Siltron in October 2025 with a track record in materials science, manufacturing and mergers and acquisitions from prior posts at SK Materials and SK Inc. Under the previous co-CEO structure, he oversaw battery manufacturing and operations; he will now absorb North American customer management and R&D innovation, completing a full consolidation of executive authority.

Lee Seok-hee took the helm of a company already in crisis. Seven months into his tenure, in July 2024, SK On declared internal emergency management measures as global EV demand stalled and North American plant utilization collapsed. The BlueOval SK dissolution — announced publicly in late 2025 — represented both the formal end of that joint venture era and, in Lee's telling, the condition he set for his own departure: finishing the job before handing the keys over.