Breaking Barriers: Meet the First Female Chief Petty Officer of the South Korean Navy

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A former platoon leader who appeared on MBC’s Real Men has been named the Republic of Korea Navy’s first female senior enlisted advisor.

On April 28, the Maritime Operations Headquarters of the Navy Operations Command announced at a 3rd–4th change-of-office ceremony that Master Chief Petty Officer Hwang Ji-hyun had assumed the post.

Commissioned in 2006 with the 211th NCO class, Hwang has a string of service “firsts” to her name: she became the navy’s first female drill instructor (DI) and the first woman in the ship specialty to advance to chief petty officer and master chief. Her appointment now adds “the navy’s first female senior enlisted advisor” to that list.

Hwang has been a major force in enlisted training. She served as an assistant drill instructor (ADI) at the NCO training unit from 2007 to 2009. From 2014 to 2018, as the navy’s first female drill instructor, she helped shape roughly 6,000 sailors across 18 classes.

In 2016, she appeared as a representative training instructor on the entertainment program Real Men 2: Navy NCO edition, drawing national attention. Hwang is a specialist in naval radar operations and has served on a variety of frontline warships, including the destroyers Gwanggaeto the Great (DDH-I, 3,200‑ton class), Munmu the Great (DDH-II, 4,400‑ton class) and Choi Young (DDH-II, 4,400‑ton class). She performed radar and maritime operations duties that contributed to coastal defense.

Radar detection (전탐, 電探) is a technical military specialty that identifies the presence and location of targets by capturing signals reflected when transmitted radio waves bounce off objects. Radar specialists operate radar and combat system equipment in cramped, low‑light shipboard and land-based command-and-control centers. They collect and evaluate sensor data and provide commanders with critical tactical information.

Before her appointment, Hwang spent a year assigned to the Maritime Operations Headquarters’ command-and-control center as a situation analysis officer, where she analyzed and reported maritime conditions across the nation’s waters. After a rigorous selection process, she was chosen for the senior enlisted advisor role. In that position she will oversee personnel and equipment management for the Maritime Operations Headquarters.

Hwang said she has continually pushed herself because she believes her achievements can inspire others. “I take pride in seeing expanded roles for female enlisted personnel in the navy,” she said. She added that she hopes junior sailors become top experts in their specialties and that, as senior enlisted advisor, she will focus on building a unit that embraces a warrior ethos and completes its missions.

Since 2003, for 23 years, female enlisted sailors in the navy have worked across sea, air and land domains and have expanded into many operational specialties. In January 2024, seven of the navy’s first female enlisted sailors completed basic submarine training and were assigned to submarines. The navy has continued broadening roles for female NCOs: in 2021 it saw its first female enlisted flight engineers for the P‑3 maritime patrol aircraft and instructor operators for the Lynx shipboard helicopter, and in 2020 it appointed its first female enlisted engineering instructor.