Awards for Best CEOs

International Management Institute cites exemplary corporate chiefs for excellent leadership

The International Management Institute held an award ceremony to present this year's IMI awards at a hotel in downtown Seoul with some 300 people including those from the business community, academic circles, and politics and the government attending. Chairman Kang Shin-ho of the Federation of Korean Industries also attended the event held by the FKI-affiliate.
FKI Chairman Kang, in his congratulatory speech, said we have to encourage the business passions of corporate heads who won the awards today to enable our country to enter the ranks of advanced countries. He said businessmen today should catch the flow of change in the business environment and adapt to it as fast as they can armed with vision and initiative spirits to create growth engines.
Among the notable winner of the award were President Kim In of Samsung SDS. His achievement in leading the company to become a top IT service firm in the world has been what brought the coveted award to him. He lead reform and changes in making the company to grow to the current level since he took office as president in 2003. The company has grown strong enough to declare its goal of becoming of the top 10 IT service firms in the world by 2010 and also become a leader in the Ubiquitous era that is due to come in the near future. President Kim has consolidated the company's operation by reforming its business structure and profit-patterns relying on the choice and concentration as the principle of management. He believed that knowledge and experience should shared among officers and staff of the company to create new value and has been leading an effort to settle the knowledge management as a corporate culture. The company's joint knowledge program has a total of 160,000 ideas and know-how submitted by the company's 7,300 employees. President Kim has launched various programs to tap the accumulated knowledge asset so that it may contribute to raise the efficiency of the company's operation and core competitive power,
not sparing investment in those efforts. He also realized his idea for taking advantage of a cyber space to be used as the facility for exchanging ideas among employees separated to carry out the company's work at home and abroad.
As a result of the leadership by President Kim, the company won the Prime Minister's award for digital management twice in 2002 and 2004. followed by the Quality Management Award in the category of knowledge management by Forbes, the well-known business magazine in the U.S. in 2005. The company, in addition, won the award for the most respected Asian knowledge management for five times in a row. President Kim is known to have opened a wide communication channel to exchange ideas with employees. He also has been exchanging CEO Monday memo with all officers and employees to tell them his management philosophy and company goals, his ideas on global management and other subjects on life and has won the respect and sympathy.
Ever changing global export market conditions require rapid attentions as competition among exporters grows intensive allowing no relaxation for exporters to sustain their competitive edge. They have to train talented personnel and develop new technologies, making CEOs very important because they have to have a higher level of visions strategy, leadership and an outstanding ability to make quick decisions.
CEOs create management reform through such leaderships and should contribute to further development of the national economy with superb management results. They also are required to make contributions to society. IMI awards are presented to CEOs with excellent management records to create respected images of top managers.
The candidates for the Management Grand Award were chosen by individual firms and the recommendation committee and the screening committee selected the winners by evaluating papers submitted by individual firms and the recommendation committee. They looked into leadership, the ability to push change and reform, their labor-management conditions, ethics, and social contribution, among others, all related to their management capabilities, and to arrive at the final list of winners in four categories.
The winners were selected one each from large firms and small companies in each category. They were Chairman Choe Shin-won of SKC, and Chairman Roh Hi-yol of Aurora World in the global competition category; President Kim In of Samsung SDS and President Choi Seong-hi of the Hiseong Engelhard in the knowledge management category; President Lee Hyun-soon of Hyundai Motor and President Choi Kwan-soo of DGI Co. in the technology innovation category; and President Kim Jong-yol of Hana Bank and Chairman Lee Tae-young of Taejun Pharmaceutical Co. in the social contribution category.
Seoul National University professor Song Byung-lak, who is the chairman of the screening committee, said the special characteristic of the winners is that they have global competitive edge in their areas of business and they have firm management philosophies and visions and outstanding leadership. They also showed that they have excellent abilities to cope with environment changes and heading toward transparent and ethical management, the chief judge added.
The presentation of the awards took place at the Dynasty Hall of Hotel Shilla in downtown Seoul, followed by luncheon at Lilac Room of the hotel.
President Kim Jong-yol of Hana Bank has played a key role for the development of Hana Bank from an investment finance company. At his inaugural ceremony as president of the bank in March last year, he said the unique corporate value and spirit can never be exchanged and made different as he has been running Hana with an ideal, "G
uest's pleasure, for only one thing,"
Hana Bank has had losses and declared dividends for 35 years in a row and its assets total 118 trillion won without mergers with other companies just through its own growth and ranks 102 in the world in terms of assets, which is owed to President Kim's unique dynamic management-style which focuses on on-spot management strategies. nw

President Kim In of Samsung SDS Co. receives the IMI management Grand Award in the knowledge management category from Chairman Kang Shin-ho of the Korean Federation of Industries.

IMI Management Grand Award winners are lined up together after winning the awards from the International Management Institute at an award ceremony held on Dec. 15.