Kia, Hyundai Name New Presidents for U.S. Operations

Orange County’s two South Korean car importers are changing presidents as part of their policy of rotating top executives among various corporate operations.

Woon Keun Kim has been appointed president and chief executive of Irvine-based Kia Motors America, the North American import and distribution arm of Seoul-based Kia Motors Corp. He replaces H.R. Park, who has presided over Kia’s U.S. operations since the company set up offices in Irvine in 1993.

Park will return to South Korea as vice president of Kia Intertrade Corp., the company’s international trading arm.

Kim, a longtime Kia executive, most recently has been director of international development for the company, South Korea’s second-largest car maker.

In Fountain Valley, Hyundai Motor America said that M.H. (Mark) Juhn has been named to replace Y.I. Lee as president of the import and distribution company.

Currently managing director of parent Hyundai Motor Corp.’s North and South American export unit, Juhn has served a previous tour in the U.S. as senior executive coordinator at Hyundai Motor America from May 1989 to October 1992.

Lee, who has been Hyundai Motor America’s president since January 1995, will return to the industrial conglomerate’s automotive unit in Seoul as vice president in charge of corporate planning and head of Hyundai Motor Corp.’s Auto Industry Research unit.

Unless personal or corporate dynamics interfere, the change of presidents typically does not affect the car companies’ top U.S. operating officers. The Korean-born presidents generally oversee company affairs and serve as liaisons with the parent company but are not highly visible in the U.S., where the operating officers typically serve as public spokesmen for the companies. Most of the Japanese car importers work under the same system.

At Hyundai Motor America, N. Doug Mazza, a former Mitsubishi and American Suzuki executive, has been chief operating officer since 1992. Hyundai, which has had a series of disappointing sales years since hitting a peak in 1987, logged a 1% sales increase in 1996 and expects sales to rise this year as well.

The top U.S. executive at Kia Motors America is W.G. “Greg” Warner, executive vice president and chief operating officer. A former Toyota and Hyundai Motor America executive, Warner was hired in 1992 to launch Kia’s U.S. operations. In 1994, he became the first U.S. executive of an Asian auto maker to sit on the parent company’s board of directors.