Chung Ju-yung

Chung Ju-yung grew up in poverty and had little formal education. He taught himself business and gained his early experience in construction.

Chung Ju-yung was a South Korean industrialist and the founder of the Hyundai group. He left the poor farming village where he grew up and in 1947 started a small civil engineering company. Reconstruction contracts in post-war Korea gave the business its start, and he expanded it into a large conglomerate, or chaebol, with operations in car manufacturing, shipbuilding and construction. Hyundai's growth followed South Korea's own rapid industrial development. Chung was known for an authoritarian style of management.