Hyundai Motor America Names New President
FOUNTAIN VALLEY — D.O. Chung has been named president and chief executive of Hyundai Motor America, the U.S. sales arm of Hyundai Motor Co., one of South Korea’s largest automobile manufacturers.
The 51-year-old mechanical engineer, who most recently was vice president for quality control at Hyundai Motor Co. in Seoul, replaces H.W. Baik, Hyundai Motor America’s president and chief executive since 1987. Chung is a 23-year Hyundai Motor veteran with experience in sales, distribution, parts, service and administration.
Baik will return to South Korea as vice president of export operations for Hyundai Motor Co. The firm is part of the giant Hyundai Group conglomerate of industrial, consumer product and financial companies.
Chung joins Hyundai Motor America as the Fountain Valley-based importer starts a major effort to improve its consumer image for quality. Hyundai set national sales records with its low-priced Excel when it introduced its line in the United States with that single model in 1986. But sales began plummeting in 1989, as Japanese car makers began establishing their own low-priced models--such as the Suzuki Swift--in the U.S. market, and as consumer complaints about the Excel’s reliability mounted.
Hyundai executives say the company has outgrown those problems and earlier this year instituted a special two-year or 24,000-mile enhanced warranty covering all routine maintenance on all four of the company’s models, now also including the Sonata, Scoupe and Elantra.
Rod Hayden, Hyundai Motor America’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, said the warranty program underscores the company’s confidence in the quality of its cars.
Chung’s appointment as president of Hyundai Motor America is part of the company’s traditional program of rotating executives through foreign assignments.
Baik, who oversaw Hyundai’s growth in the United States from 173 dealerships and two vehicles to its present network of 500 dealers and four models, will guide Hyundai Motor Co.’s international distribution and assist in further expansion of the North American market, the company said.
