BIOGRAPHY

Chung was born in as the eldest son of Chung Jae-eun, Shinsegae Group’s honorary chairman, and Lee Myung-hee, the chairwoman. He graduated from Kyungbock High School and studied Western history at Seoul National University for one year. He then moved to the United States to study economics at Brown University.
After returning to Korea with his bachelor’s degree, he worked for Fujitsu Korea for a year in the logistics business department. Following that, he joined Shinsegae Group‘s strategic planning office as vice director, then moved up to Shinsegae Department Store’s director of planning and coordination office and to become Shinsegae Group’s vice president of management services office.
Before coming to his current position as Shinsegae Group’s vice chairman, he was the vice chairman of the management services office and the group‘s president.
Lee Byung-chul, the founder of Samsung Group, was Chung Yong-jin’s maternal grandfather. Lee’s youngest daughter Lee Myung-hee is the mother of Chung Yong-jin and his younger sister Chung Yu-kyung. Chung’s father was the honorary chairman of both Westin Chosun Hotel and Shinsegae Group. He married Lee Myung-hee through a matchmaker while working as executive director of Samsung Electronics.
Chung has two sons and two daughters -- one son and one daughter from first wife Ko Hyun-jung, a Korean beauty pageant winner-turned actress, and fraternal twins with flutist Han Ji-hee, his current wife.
Reputed as communicator, Chung is an avid user of social media. He had communicated through Twitter before hackers broke into his account in 2011. Since 2015, he has been using Facebook and Instagram, posting about the products of E-mart, Korea’s largest retailer, which is run by Shinsegae Group.