South Korea is struggling to fill a top opening at its National Pension Service—the world’s third-largest pension fund—and it isn’t hard to see why.


JEONBUK INNOCITY, South Korea—Wanted: Chief investment officer to oversee more than half a trillion dollars in assets. Must be willing to weather intense political criticism for below-market pay. Openness to sharing a dormitory with roommates is a plus. Tolerance for the smell of pigs and livestock manure essential.Welcome to the neighborhood.


The job can be intensely political. As a major shareholder in many of South Korea’s biggest public companies, the government-run pension service often casts the deciding vote in corporate decisions.
The position—which oversees $565 billion in assets, more than the annual gross domestic product of Belgium—pays roughly a third of a comparable private-sector job.
What really stinks about the job, though, is the location. Last year, the NPS moved out of the bustling capital of Seoul to a government-backed “innovative city” about 120 miles south, surrounded by mountains, rice paddies and livestock and manure-handling facilities. With a population of 26,500, Jeonbuk Innocity is home to 12 public agencies and clusters of newly constructed apartment buildings within its 3.8-square-mile turf.