ABSTRACT
No one argued with the old man and won. Not his five brothers and sister or eight sons and daughter. Not even his wife of more than half a century or his numerous female friends. Chung Ju Yung celebrated his 75th birthday on November 25,1990, while hosting a delegation of visiting Soviet businessmen and scientists in his role of “honorary chairman” of the entire Hyundai group. Honorary? The chairman had “retired” for the first time in February 1987, explained a patient spokesman, a dark-suited figure in a row of slate-gray desks on the eleventh floor of group headquarters, next to the Secret Garden that had once been the playground of royalty, on one of Seoul’s crowded main streets. Even after stepping down as honorary chairman, he reigned supreme — an authority figure over glad-handing younger brother Se Yung whom he had installed as chairman. Chairman, perhaps, but never founder.
