Cho Won-tae

Walter Cho is one of those figures who operates at a scale most people can barely picture — running Korean Air and the entire Hanjin Group while simultaneously chairing the SkyTeam Alliance and sitting on the IATA board of governors. That's not just running an airline; that's helping set the direction for global aviation. Born in Seoul in 1976, he took the reins of one of Asia's most storied conglomerates and has been steering it through some genuinely turbulent years — industry disruptions, pandemic-era near-collapses, fleet renewals, airline consolidation. What I find quietly impressive is how he keeps a low profile for someone with that much institutional weight. No flashy headlines, just the slow, serious work of keeping a major carrier competitive on the world stage.

Name (English)

Cho Won-tae

Name (Japanese)

趙源泰

Reading

ちょ・うぉんて

Born

January 25, 1976 (age 50)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Dragon

Origin

Seoul, South Korea

Occupation

entrepreneur

High school

Marian High School

University

Inha University

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter%20Cho
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B6%99%E6%BA%90%E6%B3%B0
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18648498

Tags

• entrepreneur

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.