Park Tae-joon

Steel. Park, a former army general, was chosen by President Park Chung-hee to found the state steel company POSCO in 1968, when foreign lenders thought a Korean integrated steelworks unviable. Funded partly by Japanese post-colonial settlement money, the Pohang works opened in 1973 and became one of the world's most efficient steelmakers, supplying the shipyards and carmakers. He later briefly served as prime minister and died in 2011.