Dongwon-owned tuna giant Starkist has named former LG Electronics executive Chae-Ung Um as its new co-president and CEO.
Um will join the company on Nov. 1 and take over as CEO officially on Jan. 1.
He joins Starkist from LG Electronics where he was corporate senior vice president of procurement strategy, digital procurement transformation and general procurement.
Andrew Choe will continue to serve as president and CEO until Dec. 31, and will work with Um to ensure a successful transition through the end of the year, said the company.
Choe has been CEO since November 2014.
Starkist was founded in 1917 in California. Together with Bumble Bee Foods and Chicken of the Sea, the three companies control 80 percent of the US market for canned tuna.
In 2015, Chicken of the Sea struck an agreement to buy Bumble Bee, leading to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) embarking on an antitrust review of the deal. In the course of that review, the DOJ discovered the three brands were illegally fixing prices.
In 2019, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered StarKist to pay a $100 million (€100 million) fine. The ruling also saw the Pennsylvania-based company sentenced to 13 months of probation.
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