SK Group Shifts Management to Offensive Mode

Establishes an incorporated co. in China integrating the Chinese operations of the group’s subsidiaries

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won told a New Year’s gathering at the Sheraton Walker Hill Hotel Jan. 4 that he is determined to expand the group’s presence in foreign countries, including China, saying that the group will mobilize all available opportunities in the global market to ensure its growth and leap.
Chey said, “All opportunities should be employed in the global market without paying attention to domestic standing or vested interests.”
He urged his group’s executives and staff members to carry out jobs in an aggressive and determined manner in order to ensure success, growth and stability on the global stage.
His message for 2010 signifies that he has shifted his management paradigm from a survival strategy in 2009 to a growth strategy. It indicates that the group is striving to explore such new future growth engines as green projects while expanding its growth potential by reactivating its businesses in China, which have showed signs of sluggishness.
The group plans to set aside more money for facility investments and R&D outlays than the 7 trillion won poured into those areas during 2009.
FOCUS ON SECURING TECH-ORIENTED GROWTH ENGINES
It is implementing new growth strategies to concentrate its R&D capability on leading technologies that will dominate the global market.
Chey told a CEO seminar at the Beijing SK Tower last November that the group should be reorganized into a technology-led business structure in order to maintain a core competitive edge and sustainable growth in each business division and it plans to invest 5.7 trillion won in R&D during the period between 2010 and 2012.
SK Holdings, the holding company of the group, conducted its restructuring late last year, calling for the establishment of the Tech Innovation Center (TIC), the group’s integrated R&D center, which has two divisions ― the Green-tech and Convergence groups. SK Energy has an in-house research institute in a company-in-company (CIC) format to secure core technologies. SK Telecom plans to establish an industry productivity enhancement (IPE) corps to explore future growth engines and secure original technologies.
7 TASKS IN THE GREEN FIELD
The group plans to control internal and external markets and build a foundation for stable growth by expanding investments into such green business areas as renewable energy. It has set its top seven tasks in the green technology R&D and commercialization areas, including pollution-free coal energy, marine bio-fuel, solar battery and transforming CO2 into resources.
SK Energy, the flagship company of the conglomerate, leads in the development of new and renewable energy sources. Listed on SK Energy’s top priority list for developing technologies is the pollution-free coal energy technology, a technology related to lowering CO2 and other harmful emissions, a technology that will transform cheaper coal into transportation fuel as well as electric and chemical products. Such technologies as a marine bio-fuel using agar and carbon capture technology for the production of polymers and other chemical products are under development. The group decided to continuously expand investments into secondary batteries for electric cars and hydrogen fuel station areas. nw

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won speaks at a New Year’s event for the group at the Sheraton Walker Hill Hotel on Jan. 4.

SK’s Reshuffle Aimed at Stepping Up Chinese Operation

40 executives of the group’s subsidiaries dispatched to China; establishment of ITC

The SK Group made a reshuffle designed to fortify the organization’s Chinese operations Jan. 18.
Park Young-ho was appointed to head SK China, an integrated SK operation, which will be inaugurated in the first half of 2010, and about 40 executives of the group’s subsidiaries will be forward-deployed into the newly inaugurated integrated operation, which will play the role of “control tower” for 96 incorporated bodies established by 13 group subsidiaries.
Park, concurrently CEO of SK Holdings, has been credited with transforming the conglomerate into a holding company system. He is considered to be well qualified for the job of collecting the synergetic effects of the group’s incorporated bodies in China and establishing and implementing investment plans and business strategies. Park, who served as managing director of POSCO Business Research, moved to executive director of the SK Marketing Support Headquarters before rising to CEO of SK Holdings in July 2007 in recognition of his leading roles in the overhauling of the group’s governance.
SK Energy P&T President Park Sang-hoon was appointed to head TIC. Other CEOs of the SK subsidiaries were retained.
Kim Yong-heum, chief of the chemical business division, was promoted to head a CIC, which was spun off from SK Energy. SK Energy’s research institute is operated as a kind of CIC for exploring new technologies while the Resources Development Division has been separated into an independent body under the control of the CEO to speed up decision-making about the development of overseas resources.
SK Telecom established the IPE Corps in charge of exploring future growth engine industries and an infrastructure technology research institute to be placed under the control of the chief technology officer (CTO). Its business division has been separated into China and U.S. operations while Convergence & Internet (C&I) will be relocated into China.
SK Telecom Telink President Park In-sik was transferred to the president of SK Broadband, while Lee Gyou-bin, chief of SK Telecom Business Management Center, was promoted to SK Telecom Telink president. Cho Ki-haeng, president of SK Networks Management Service Company, became president of the Global Management Service (GMS) Division. nw

(clockwise) GMS President Cho Ki-haeng,; SK Gas President Choi Sang-hoon,; SK Energy Chemical CIC President Kim Yong-heum,; SK Telink President Lee Gyou-bin,; SK China President Park Young-ho,; TIC President Park Sang-hoon,; and SK Broadband President Park In-sik.