H-Story

– Hyundai Corporation Group dispatches employees in their 30s as heads of overseas corporations and introduces courses such as finance, M&A and enterprise analysis for employees to achieve the goal to discover new businesses to lead the company after 10 years –

 

“In the past, general trading companies were able to grow through lucrative trading. However, now it requires talents with multi-tasking skills. We will invest more in fostering talents starting this year.”

 

Chung MongHyuck, the chairman of Hyundai Corporation Group said to staff and employees during the Global Strategy Conference (GSC) held on February 11. Avoiding previous one-sided trading (transit trading), he emphasized the necessity of talented personnel who can discover and promote new businesses by himself like startups. Last year, the name of the company in Korean was changed to the present name by removing the meaning of “trading” from its previous name meant “Hyundai General Trading Company” 45 long years after the foundation. It was the will of chairman Chung to transform the company to “General Business Company”. For such purpose, chairman Chung has a plan to introduce an education program for finance, accounting, merger and acquisition (M&A) and big data analysis this year targeting all staff and employees. The chairman is an only son of the deceased Chung Shin-Yung who was the brother of the founder and honorary chairman Chung Ju-Yung of Hyundai Group.

Chairman of Hyundai Corporation, Chung Mong-Hyuck

 

According to the economic circles on February 22, Hyundai Corporation will introduce a new in-company education program so called “H.I.Lab (Hyundai Innovation Lab)” in March. Its main contents contain the support for employees to study the businesses and technologies of prospective growth such as smart mobility, eco-friendly energy, digital technology and life commerce. With external experts from Seoul National University, KAIST, and Korea Energy Economics Institute, it is scheduled to prepare a study report of new business and report it to chairman Chung in this coming month of October.

 

The education program will be created to find, launch, and manage a new business. At first, an education course for finance and accounting will be introduced to teach the analysis on the validity of enterprise and business targeting jniors and manages. Later, through the courses for professional of enterprise value assessment, M&A master and Big Data analyst, the company plans to foster an in-depth analyst for the investment in new businesses.

 

An authority of Hyundai Corporation said, “The chairman forecasts that if we can start a small business and grow it well, it can become a future major driving force to lead the company after 10 years.” He added, “We have been focusing on the fostering staff and employees while current annual education hours reach 17.1% of the entire working hours.” Chairman Chung has a long-term plan to make its own unique “20% rule of Hyundai Corporation” which encourages to use 20% of working hours for creative works like in Google.

 

The chairman has dispatched even managers in their 30s as heads or branch managers to overseas corporations if they have a good idea and an understanding of businesses, which is in contrast with the usual dispatching of veteran managers in their 40s to 50s as the heads of overseas corporations by general companies. As young employees are rather sensitive and challenging to the trend, he judged that they could also achieve successful outcomes in overseas countries.

 

 

▲ Hyundai Corporation established a joint venture (JV) of “Smith Mushroom Holdings” along with the domestic agricultural corporation of Korea Green Mushroom Park in 2018 and built a mushroom farm at Northwest of Lancaster, UK.

 

The manager Kim Choong-Ki born in 1984 has been operating the production and distribution of mushroom in the UK as a head of “Smith Mushroom Holdings”. He became the head of overseas corporation in 2019 five years after he had entered the company. He has increased the sales of 10 million pounds in 2 years which was 5 million pounds (about 8 billion won). In the same year, the manager in charge Shin Dong-Jin born in 1985 was dispatched to Cambodia as the head of the corporation. He expanded the sales from 4.4 million dollars (5.3 billion won) to 15 million dollars. Including these managers, among 47 overseas corporation heads and branch managers in the Group, 17 managers (36%) were born between 1980 and 1990.

 

The reason that chairman Chung asked employees to challenge new businesses is to extend the company’s business area. Only with the main job of trading by the general trading company, limitation exists for the growth of an enterprise. This is the background to promote the recent acquisition of Sinki Inter Mobile the primary partnership company of Hyundai Motor Company and to build the plastic injection and molding plant for auto parts in Russia. An authority of Hyundai Corporation said, “This year, we plan to start some businesses including operating electric bus in Southeast Asia, recycling the waste modules of solar panels in Japan, and manufacturing deicing materials in North America. We will continuously discover new market and business opportunity.”

February 22, 2022, Chosunbiz