There was an expectation that Samsung would shake things up significantly in its annual personnel reshuffle that started earlier this time around. The company today announced a major leadership change as it seeks a return to growth, particularly in the lucrative semiconductor segment.

The announced changes primarily focus on the semiconductor business. Samsung says that the new leadership team will oversee “the next phase” of its growth and also take steps to further strengthen its competitiveness.

Will big changes at Samsung finally turn things around?

Jun Young-hyun, vice chairman and head of its Device Solutions business, has been appointed as co-CEO. He will lead the company alongside co-CEO Han Jong-hee, vice chairman and the head of Samsung's Device eXperience division. Young-hyun is now directly in charge of Samsung's highly lucrative memory business and the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology.

The executive vice president of Samsung's US chip business, Han Jin-man, has been promoted to president and will now lead the foundry business, which has been taking on significant losses recently. Han has previously worked on design teams for Samsung's DRAM products. He's also been responsible for SSD development and strategic marketing. Samsung will be counting on his established profile in the US to win over major clients such as Qualcomm and NVIDIA.

Samsung has also created a new chief technology officer position for its foundry business to improve its competitiveness. It has appointed Nam Seok-woo to this position. An expert in semiconductor process development and manufacturing, Nam was previously the head of fab engineering and operations. His responsibilities will include closing the gap with market leader TSMC in the foundry segment.

Lastly, a new committee has been set up sed by co-CEO Han Jong-hee to enhance product quality across the entire company. This renewed focus will hopefully enable the company to overcome the bottlenecks that have dented its competitiveness in the high-bandwidth memory products and chip manufacturing on advanced process nodes, allowing rivals like SK Hynix and TSMC to fill up their order books at Samsung's expense.

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