SK Group, the country's second-largest conglomerate, carried out a relatively modest year-end reshuffle Thursday, focusing largely on organizational restructuring to boost core competence under the three key themes, technology, field expertise and global presence.

With the goal to enhance its US presence, the conglomerate appointed a former chief of the US Trade Representative to oversee government relations at SK Americas. The group also sought for restructuring of SK hynix, its lucrative chip-making affiliate with a new C-level system to strengthen swift decision-making to respond to the artificial intelligence boom.

SK hynix, the world's second-largest memory chip maker after its cross-town rival Samsung Electronics, has introduced a C-level management system and reorganized the company into five divisions -- AI Infra, Future Technology Research Institute, Development, Production and Corporate Center -- with a goal to establish a "one team" structure.

The five divisions will be led by respective C-suite executives and will be centered around the CEO Kwak Noh-jung, so that the leaders can respond to market and technological changes more agilely, the company said.

"Thanks to the united efforts of our employees, we have firmly established our technological edge in the AI memory chip sector, with High Bandwidth Memory chips and enterprise SSDs, this year," Kwak said.

In the reshuffle, the company newly established the Development Division and promoted Ahn Hyun to president and chief development officer overseeing the unit. The new division brings together all memory product development capabilities, including DRAM and NAND flash solutions, for developing next-generation AI memory chips, the company explained.

Ahn has served key roles in the company to handle management strategy and solution development, and has been participating in the company's key decision-making processes as an internal director after appointment this year.

The Production Division, which is also newly created, will oversee the entire manufacturing processes, from front end to back end, to maximize synergies between processes, the company said. The new division will also lead the advanced integration of production technologies for fabrication plants, being constructed in both Korea and overseas, including the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster, the company added.

To better handle increasing global demand for advanced AI chips, the company also staffed its external relations and global affairs teams with diplomacy and trade experts, the chip maker said.

This year, the company appointed 33 new executives, of which 70 percent of them are from technical fields, to prepare for future growth and infuse fresh perspectives on customer needs and technological trends, the company said.

For SK Americas, which was established earlier this year to oversee SK Group's North American business, the group appointed Senior Vice President Paul Delaney as head of government relations.

Delaney, who served as former deputy chief of staff for the USTR and international trade advisor for the United States Senate Committee on Finance, joined SK Americas in July.

The group also tapped Son Hyun-ho, a finance expert as the new CEO of SK Discovery, the investment-focused holding firm specializing in energy and materials.

With the aim to accelerate AI and digital formation initiatives across its affiliates, the SK Supex Council, the group's top advisory panel, will expand its AI and DT task forces, elevating the units into committee-level bodies.

SK Inc. will create a new AI Innovation unit directly under its CEO to explore growth opportunities, and SK Telecom will establish an AI R&D Center to enhance synergies among affiliates, the group added.

Amid rebalancing efforts, SK Group's executive promotions have been cut almost by half this year, 75, when compared to 145 in 2022. Last year, the group promoted 82 executives.

The conglomerate group said it is adopting a “flexible appointment system” to carry out leadership reshuffles as needed throughout the year. This year, SK Group already replaced the top brass across its affiliates earlier in the year, naming new CEOs for SK Ecoplant in May, SK Square in July and SK Energy, SK Geocentric and SK IE Technology in October.