VISIONARY OF THE YEAR - Euisun Chung, EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN, HYUNDAI MOTOR GROUP

HYUNDAI MOTOR GROUP’S Executive Chairman Euisun Chung isn’t just focused on the cars of today. He’s pushing the company, and its Hyundai, Kia and Genesis brands, into the future in several key ways. The company is becoming more vertically integrated, with Hyundai acquiring stakes in many of the companies that supply it with materials and components. It is bringing numerous electric models to market and testing hydrogen fuel-cell powered vehicles. And it has acquired a major robotics company with an eye toward a future in which wheeled devices will move people and things around their homes and workplaces.

- EILEEN FALKENBURG-HULL

Those initiatives, which collectively put Hyundai Motor Group at the forefront of disruptive change in the industry, make Chung Newsweek’s Auto Disruptors Visionary of the Year.

“From the very start, when my visionary grandfather, Ju-Yung Chung, founded the company, we have always wanted to make a genuine and positive difference to people’s lives,” Chung tells Newsweek. “You could say that we have always been disruptors and today the ambition to create, improve and move forward is evident in the people and teams around the world who are part of Hyundai Motor Group. Personally, I feel compelled to drive change where it is needed and I believe it is imperative that those of us in a position to change the world for the better must accept the responsibility and embrace it.”

Alternative fuels play a major role in Chung’s plans for Hyundai’s future, as the Group pushes forward in an ambitious way on electric cars and trucks. The company will have 14 battery-electric vehicles under the Kia brand by 2027 and 11 Hyundai and six Genesis battery electric vehicles by 2030. The goal: to sell 3 million units and capture 12 percent of the global electric vehicle market by 2030.