Kolmar Vice Chairman Yoon Sang-hyun will orchestrate K-Beauty’s global expansion

Kolmar Holdings announced at a regular board meeting on May 2 that it has voted to appoint Kolmar Group Vice Chairman Yoon Sang-hyun as CEO. Yoon Sang-hyun is the eldest son of Kolmar Group chairman Yoon Dong-han, the founder of Kolmar Group.

With the appointment of Yoon as CEO, Kolmar Group plans to accelerate K-beauty’s global expansion. In April, the company changed the name of its holding company from Kolmar Korea Holdings to Kolmar Holdings to reflect its intention to expand its business outside Korea.

Kolmar Group has recently accelerated its overseas expansion, including the United States. After opening its North American Technical Sales Center in New Jersey, the United States last year, Kolmar Korea will complete its second factory in the United States later this year. Unlike the first factory, which focuses on color cosmetics, the second factory will produce basic skin and sun care products. This will allow the company to produce a full range of cosmetics in the United States, the largest market in the world. Kolmar Global, which is responsible for overseas operations outside North America, will enter the Southeast Asian market by establishing overseas subsidiaries in Vietnam, the Philippines and Singapore.

Vice Chairman Yoon recognized the importance of the North American market early on. In 2016, Kolmar USA (formerly known as PTP) and Kolmar Canada (formerly known as CSR), a US cosmetics ODM service provider, were acquired to lay the foundation for Kolmar’s global expansion. In 2022, Yoon took the lead in acquiring trademark rights to the Kolmar brand. With exclusive rights to the Kolmar brand, Kolmar Group can now operate in global markets without trademark restrictions.

Yoon also orchestrated the acquisition of HK inno.N (formerly known as CJ Healthcare) in 2018. He initiated a project to acquire CJ Healthcare to seek new growth engines for Kolmar Group, which had a business structure focused on cosmetics and functional health food. The CJ Healthcare acquisition was a rare case of a mid-sized company acquiring a subsidiary of a major business group in Korea. The deal was worth 1.31 trillion won. In August 2021, the company successfully had an initial public offering (IPO) for HK inno.N. Kolmar Holdings plans to actively support HK inno.N’s global expansion in the pharmaceutical sector.