Yang Hyang-ja facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Yang Hyang-ja
양향자
President of National Human Resource Management Institute
In office 31 August 2018 – 1 August 2019
President	Moon Jae-in
Prime Minister	Lee Nak-yeon
Preceded by	Oh Dong-ho
Succeeded by	Park Chun-ran
Member of the National Assembly
Incumbent
Assumed office 30 May 2020
Preceded by	Chun Jung-bae
Constituency	Gwangju Seo B
Personal details
Born	(1967-04-04) 4 April 1967 (age 58) Hwasun County, South Jeolla Province, South Korea
Political party	New Reform
Other political affiliations	Independent (2021–2023) Democratic (–2021) Hope of Korea (2023–2024)
Alma mater	now-Cyber University of Korea Sungkyunkwan University
Signature

Yang Hyang-ja (Hangul: 양향자; Hanja: 梁香子; born April 4, 1967) is a South Korean politician. She used to be a top leader at Samsung, a big technology company. Since 2020, she has been a member of the National Assembly. This is like the parliament or congress in South Korea. She represents the city of Gwangju.

Yang was once a member of the Democratic Party. In 2023, she started her own political group called the Hope of Korea party. Before becoming a member of the National Assembly, she led the National Human Resource Management Institute (NHI). This institute helps manage human resources for the government. She was the first woman to lead the NHI since it began in the 1960s.

Her Time at Samsung Electronics

Yang Hyang-ja started working at Samsung Electronics when she was 18 years old. She joined right after finishing Gwangju Girls' Commercial High School. At Samsung, she helped researchers who worked on semiconductor memory. These are special parts used in computers and phones.

She worked in Samsung's memory semiconductor departments for over 30 years. In 2014, she was promoted to an executive position. This meant she was a leader in developing flash memory. She was the first woman to become an executive in this area without a university degree when she started. She was also from the Honam region of Korea.

While working at Samsung, Yang continued her education. She earned a bachelor's degree in 2005 from Cyber University of Korea. Samsung helped start this university in 2000. Later, in 2008, she got her master's degree from Sungkyunkwan University. This university also has strong ties with Samsung.

Her Journey in Politics

Yang Hyang-ja began her political career in late 2015. She was asked to join politics by Moon Jae-in, who was a party leader at the time. She left her job at Samsung in December 2015. In 2016, she officially joined the Democratic Party. She then ran for election in the Gwangju area in the 2016 general election.

Even though she did not win that election, Yang kept working in politics. She became one of five elected members of the party's Supreme Council for two years. In August 2018, she left this role to become the president of the National Human Resource Management Institute (NHI). After leading the NHI for a year, she resigned in 2019 to prepare for the 2020 election.

In the 2020 general election, Yang won her seat in the National Assembly. She defeated Chun Jung-bae, who had been a parliament member for a long time. Yang became the only woman representing a district in the Honam region. In August 2020, she rejoined the Supreme Council of her party.

In September 2020, the new leader of her party, Lee Nak-yon, chose Yang to be a co-deputy chair. This was for the party's K-New Deal Committee. She also became the chair of the party's special group for the economy and people's lives.

In June 2023, Yang announced that she was starting her own political party, called Hope of Korea. She has also spoken about how the United States should change its policies regarding the global semiconductor industry.

Election Results

Here are the results from the elections Yang Hyang-ja has participated in:

Books About Her

A book about Yang's life has been published. It is called Fly Towards Dream Beyond Dream, Hyang-ja.