Samsung is reviving its split leadership model to move faster in a turbulent market, reinstating a dual-CEO structure that puts mobile and memory at the center of its strategy. The company has formalized President Roh Tae-moon as head of the Device eXperience division and elevated him to co-CEO, while Vice Chair Jun Young-hyun, who leads the memory-focused Device Solutions segment, will serve as the other co-CEO.
As part of the reshuffle, Jun Young-hyun will hand over leadership of the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology to Park Hong-kun, a Harvard professor specializing in nanoscience and quantum technology. Joining on January 1, Park will also guide the company’s push into neuromorphic semiconductors—chip architectures that mimic how the human brain processes information by combining memory and compute in the same place for major efficiency gains.
The timing of these changes reflects mounting industry pressure. Samsung’s mobile business is navigating higher component costs ahead of the Galaxy S26 series. AI-fueled demand for high bandwidth memory is absorbing production capacity and pushing up prices across the memory stack, including LPDDR5 used in smartphones. At the same time, application processor costs have climbed, and a weaker Korean won makes premium chips sourced from global suppliers even more expensive. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, widely expected to power the Galaxy S26 Ultra, is a particular cost driver.
By elevating leaders across mobile and memory, Samsung aims to streamline decision-making and respond more quickly to fast-moving trends—from the surge in AI workloads reshaping the memory market to the premium smartphone components that define flagship devices. The new structure, combined with fresh R&D leadership in frontier technologies, is designed to protect margins, strengthen product competitiveness, and keep Samsung nimble as it enters its next product cycle.
