Kumho Asiana CEO
Dreaming of a Beautiful Ascent

Chairman Park, the winner of the 2006 CEO of the Year Award, stresses ethical management

Celebrating the 60th anniversary of its inception, Kumho Asiana Group Chairman Park Sam-koo unveiled its new corporate identity designed to symbolize its futuristic ascent and waved it confidently before a group of reporters during a ceremony for introducing the new CI at his head office at Shinmunro, downtown Seoul, on February 1. Chairman Park has been credited with helping Kumho Asiana Group advance to the domestic top 10 conglomerate list through his excellent management innovations based on ethical management.
Taking the helm of Asiana Airlines and Kumho Asiana Group, Park's business performances are almost synonymous with the history of Kumho Asiana. True to the new corporate vision "A Beautiful Corporation Making an Ascent to a Beautiful Future together with Customers,"Chairman Park translated his determination for ethical management into action and demonstrated his innovative leadership to the local industry community.
Taking office as the fourth chairman of the conglomerate in September 2002, Chairman Park declared a five-point management strategy ― ethics management, rational management, manpower management, strategic management and technology management. In particular, he has attached priority on putting ethics management into practice.
Inheriting principle management tenets for contributions to the nation and regional economies from the late Park In-cheon, his father and founder of Kumho Asiana Group, the junior Park has strived to ensure ethical management.
Asiana Airlines Chairman-CEO Park stresses, "Ethics are the reason and principles that human beings have to abide by to maintain relationships. In corporate management, it is more important to develop confidence between corporation and society, between management and employees and between employees and society, based on ethical consciousness. The corporation should be beloved by society and this is accomplished by ensuring reliability and fulfilling social responsibility."GIVING MANPOWER PRECEDENCE ― Chairman Park favors an old saying with Chinese characters, "Commerce Equals to Human Being."Recognizing the importance of manpower, which constitutes a precious asset of management, he emphasizes that a combination of securing excellent manpower and investments will beef up an edge, thus allowing a corporation to survive in an era of borderless competition during the 21st Century.
The message of the old saying indicates Chairman Park's belief in the significance of manpower as an asset and his manpower management. The purpose of corporation management is to upgrade the living quality of diverse interest parties around the corporation, including shareholders, employees and customers. Recognizing the importance of manpower management, a time-honored corporate tradition that has been nurtured since the era of the late group founder, Chairman Park has spared no effort in securing talented manpower and human resources development. A case in point is the group's annual presentation of the "Supreme Man of Kumho Award.
"The group has offered educational programs on cultivating experts in such sectors as financing, accounting, funds and sales.
Chairman Park has been well groomed to take the helm at the conglomerate as he has held such several posts as the president-CEO of Asiana Airlines since 1967 when he started his corporate career at Kumho Tire. Park was officially inaugurated as the chairman of the conglomerate in September 2002, but he had virtually taken helm at the group since 18 months ago in place of his elder brother. At that time, Park as the acting chairman had been recognized as a professional manager for his successful management of the business group. He showed off prowess as a well-groomed conglomerate heir as he himself presented his company during an IR session while serving as president of Asiana Airlines.
The virtues the chairman regard as essential things to become a CEO are setting the proper example, having a determined mind and being a driving force. Park's track record made with the virtues during his 39-year career seems like telling the chronology of strides Kumho Asiana has made so far. In 1968, he established a company designed to secure synthetic rubber, the raw material for producing tires, laying a solid foundation for the chemical division of the group. The company was merged into a joint venture between Kumho Tire and Mitsui in 1970 to form a foundation of a domestic petrochemical leader, now Kumho Petrochemical. Park has been credited with helping Kumho Tire growing into a world-class tire manufacturer. In December 2003, Kumho Tire dedicated Kumho Tire Pyeongtaek Automated Production Unit (APU), a state-of-art automatic manufacturing plant.
Chairman Park has shown off managerial prowess since 1991 when he began his stint at the CEO of Asiana Airlines. He was given high marks in helping Asiana Airlines, with less room to maneuver as a later-comer, evolve into a national flag carrier with annual sales of 3 trillion won.

CUSTOMER-ORIENTED WORLD-BEST SERVICE ― Park had focused on overhauling maintenance systems and breaking barriers between departments to create a corporate environment by providing services to customers with the goal of ensuring safety. He had strived to ensure harmony and mobility of the airline industry involving at least eight types of occupation, including maintenance personnel, pilots, and flight attendants and catering that could otherwise have been engaged in conflicts between interested parties. He had taken the initiative in reforming its corporate constitution by introducing such catchphrases as "Order and Freedom"and "One Tempo Faster."Chairman Park is famous for having offered support to the domestic culture and arts as well as academic circles. Kumho Asiana Group has supported talented classic music through the Kumho Asiana Culture Foundation and painters through Kumho Museum and Kumho Creation Studio. The group won the First Culture Seoul Support Award from the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture last year.

EXPANSION MODE ― Early this year, Group Chairman Park reconfirmed his group's willingness to take over Daewoo E&C. Park ruled out its acquisition based on leveraged buyout, saying, "Acquisition of Daewoo E&C should bring about benefits to both acquisition and the construction company."Chairman Park made it clear that the group has no problem in acquiring the funds necessary for taking over both Daewoo E&C and Korea Express, a logistics company, which is expected to be put on the block around the end of this year. "Right now, the group may mobilize 1.5 trillion won in cash. There is no problem in acquiring the funds needed to take over not only Daewoo E&C, but also Korea Express,"he said.
He said acquisition of Daewoo E&C would cost about 3 trillion won. Financial investors will participate in Kumho Asiana's acquisition bid, but Kumho Asiana itself plans to mobilize two-thirds of the needed fund, he added.
Kumho Asiana Chairman Park admitted that his group's investment pattern has been too conservative. He noted that the decision to take over the two companies was made after intensive consideration, adding that its preparations for acquiring Daewoo E&C have been already finished.

AGGRESSIVE MANAGEMENT APPROACH ― Kumho Asiana Group has come up with an aggressive business plan for the year 2006 ― reaping 800 billion won in ordinary profits on sales worth 11 trillion won, and investing 1.8 trillion won, a 50 percent surge over 2005.
Outlining its 2006 business plan and strategies on December 30, the business group said it would aggressively make investments into such areas as R&D, education, IT and social services in a bid to maintain a constant growth, enhance its competitive edge and put into practice "sharing"management policies.
The business group will be engaged in active overseas exploration projects as part of its efforts to beef up the global competitive edge of the group's core industrial growth engines ― tire, airline and construction. It plans to expand investments into new business areas centering on logistics and tourism & leisure industries while actively considering M&As to some companies related directly to the group's core capabilities.
Kumho Asiana Group Chairman Park Sam-koo said in his New Year's message that he summed up the 2006 management topics as "stability and take-off."Describing the year 2006 as the first year of its efforts to develop Kumho Asiana into a top five business group, Group Chairman Park called on its executives and staff to explore the future in a forward-looking and dynamic manner. He urged them to explore futuristic growth engines, make massive investments into existing business areas, expand overseas projects and enter new markets through M&As. Marking the 60th anniversary this year since its inception, the business group attaches priority on strengthening business capabilities in the Chinese market during the year 2006. The business group, which has made investments into China so far, will place its investment focus to Vietnam other than China. Its investment into China will continue into the year 2006.
In the first half of this year, Kumho Tire will dedicate its plant in Tianjin, China capable of producing 5.25 million tires. The project, which will cost $180 million, started last April. Kumho Tire will hold a ground-breaking ceremony on its third plant in Changchun, China with a capacity of producing 3.25 million tires each year. Altogether, Kumho Tire's three plants in China, including the existing one in Nanjing will have a capacity of churning out 20 million tires annually from 2008.
Asiana Airlines plans to expand flight routes to China by launching two or three new flight routes.
Kumho Rent-A-Car will raise its rental fleet to 1,000 by 2008 when the Beijing Olympics is slated to be held.
Kumho Asiana Group plans to foster logistics and tourism-leisure industries as the group's growth engine industries. The group plans to enter door-to-door logistics service and third party logistics markets by acquiring major logistics companies with the goal of developing it into an integrated logistics group. A combination of golf courses, resorts and entertainment parks as well as airline, car rental and expressway bus businesses will bring about synergetic effects, group officials said.
Chairman Park won the 2006 CEO of the Year Award from Korea Management Association.
Park was awarded the Order of Industrial Service Merit, Gold Tower on the commemoration of the 31st Commerce and Industry Day.
This award was especially significant for the Kumho Asiana Group as the group had received the same award twice previously.
In 1976 and 2002, then Chairman-CEO Park Seong-yawng and Park Jeong-koo received the award for their contribution to national export and economic growth.
Park Sam-koo was also the recipient of 2001 Passenger Service Award from Air Transport World. nw

Kumho Asiana Group Chairman Park Sam-koo