Kyobo Life's Upbeat Records

Life insurer improves its bottom lines since Chmn. Shin takes over erasing red ink in its operation

Chairman Shin Chang-jae of Kyobo Life Insurance Co.


Chairman Shin Chang-jae of Kyobo Life Insurance Co. is known for his knack for easy communication and rapport with the company's employees, financial designers in particular. He mixes with them and play with them easily at parties. The company has some 1,000 financial designers and at a party in May last year, the chairman sang and played guitars and at a party held no too long ago this year, he showed them this time his skills to play the Korean drums and cymbals which were designed to show his appreciation for the financial designers for their hard work and hopes they will continue to work hard as the top CEO of the company and for the group.
At a ceremony for the company's 52nd anniversary in August last year, which was held at the company's Central Region Headquarters in Daejeon, the chairman wanted to give encouragement to the financial designers in the regional headquarters for their fine job, which was made more significant as the anniversary ceremony was the first one to be held outside the company's head office in Seoul.
The chairman's special antiques in communicating with his staff often were instrumental in rallying them before the launch of key programs targeted at getting higher performance results.
His strategies worked. In 2008, Kyobo Life posted 291.6 billion won in net profit, taking up more than half of the life insurance firms net profit during that year. In the following year, the company netted 525.2 billion won in net income and 610.8 billion won in the first three quarters of 2010, which is a quite a turnaround when the chairman took over the helm of the company in 2000, its net loss amounted to 250 billion won. They said it was possible because the chairman's management strategy to take the jobsites seriously by often touring the jobsites where insurance policies are sold and meetings with financial designers working for the company directly.
He has been known for not taking seriously the amounts of sales for the sake of winning the competition. He rather takes seriously the quality of services that the company provides to its customers, especially, in terms of guarantees.
In his congratulatory speech at the 52nd anniversary, Shin called for strengthening cooperation between jobsites and the headquarters office in Seoul for a strong team work for a good growth that will help every one in the company to develop. A good growth here means, not just increasing the sales of life insurance policies, but creating new markets by providing quality services to customers.
Management, he said, is to pursue joint growth for various interested parties including customers, employees, investors, local society, and governments, among others, and you have to grab a best starting point to set up a smooth circulation and at the end, sustainable management will be realized. The starting point for smooth circulation is customers, Shin believes.
In May last year, Forbes said the chairman at first was reluctant to take over the company, but he did a very good job for managing the company, nevertheless, after taking over as the CEO.
CEO Shin says that companies should have a vision in order to survive and grow in rapidly changing markets.
Vision is a goal that employees and the organization pursues on its own accord.He says that a vision is the key ingredient for success,which helps an individual or a company to focus its strength and resources on realizing their goals and linking them to the future.
People at Kyobo Life mention that vision is the 'Big Boss' even above the CEO. This means that even the CEO must follow the vision.
"A leader is the one who is responsible for leading his/her organization 'somewhere'. That 'somewhere' is a vision. A vision must be , specific, clear and realistic. You can't hit the target when it is not visible."
CEO Shin has been invited to speak on vision management, change and innovation at a wide range of meetings and organizations such as the World Women Leaders Summit, Korea Standard Association, KITA, FKI Young Leaders' Club, Asia Insurance CEO Summit, and KAIST Techno Business School. Shin says he is more active in public speeches and lectures than any other CEO despite his busy schedule in the hopes of making a contribution to changing our society by offering his own experience in change and innovation. nw