Lee Jae-yong presides over Samsung's executive New Year meeting... reviews the "2026 Strategy" before CES

Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong will convene all subsidiary CEOs for a New Year’s dinner in early next year and officially share the new year’s business strategy. It is expected that Samsung will use this opportunity to reassess its business direction toward 2026 and prepare to take the lead in the global market across various departments.

According to industry sources, the dinner will be held at Samsung Electronics’ headquarters in Seocho-dong, Seoul, with plans for most of the core subsidiaries, including Samsung Electronics, Samsung SDI, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Samsung Display, Samsung C&T, and Samsung Life Insurance, to be represented by their presidents. Since Vice President Jeon Yong-hyun, the head of Samsung Electronics’ Device Solutions (DS) division; President Lu Tae-won, head of Samsung Electronics’ Device Experience (DX) division; and management from various electronics and financial subsidiaries are expected to attend, the event is essentially regarded as the starting point for the group’s new year operations.

This New Year’s dinner is scheduled to take place before CES 2026, the world’s largest home appliance and IT exhibition, opening in Las Vegas in January next year. CES serves as a platform for showcasing the global technology industry’s blueprint, and analysts interpret that Chairman Lee’s leadership of these discussions before the event aims to realign departmental strategies and enhance market responsiveness.

The New Year’s CEO dinner at Samsung has traditionally been held in conjunction with the birthday of the late former chairman Lee Kun-hee. Until 2014, the early-year dinner remained a core part of the group’s schedule, but it was interrupted for several years due to the former chairman’s illness. During that period, only sporadic small-scale meetings or dinners for new executives were held. Since Chairman Lee Jae-yong officially assumed the chairmanship, the New Year’s dinner involving all subsidiaries has been restarted since 2023. This is seen as Samsung’s effort to reinforce operational unity through traditional methods.

Particularly in the context of recent semiconductor market recovery and global supply chain restructuring, Samsung is regaining momentum for growth, which is one of the backgrounds for this meeting. Chairman Lee previously emphasized at an executive seminar in March of this year that “management should take the lead in reflection, acting decisively with a ‘death before rebirth’ resolve,” and it is speculated that similar remarks might resurface during this meeting. Industry experts expect that Chairman Lee will urge management to stay alert and continue innovation and market leadership during the dinner.

After the meeting, Chairman Lee plans to personally inspect domestic and international business sites and conduct on-site management. The presidents of Samsung’s major subsidiaries also plan to hold additional meetings at the Samsung Human Resources Development Center in Yongin later this month, with key strategic issues expected to undergo continuous adjustments from the beginning of the year.

These developments are expected to lay the foundation for Samsung’s major business restructuring and future technology investments next year, potentially marking the company’s formal entry into an era focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and next-generation semiconductors to strengthen global competitiveness.