Doosan Corp. CEO Park Takes Helm at Doosan Business Group

New chairman declares group's vision of becoming a global top 200 company

Doosan Corp. CEO Park Yong-man took office as the chairman of the Doosan Business Group at an inauguration ceremony in Seoul on April 2, taking over the leadership from Chairman Park Yong-hyun.
In his inaugural speech at the Doosan Leadership Institute in Gil-dong, Gangdong-gu, the new Doosan Group chairman declared his group’s vision of joining the ranks of global top 200 companies. Doosan Business Group placed 488th among global companies according to a report by released last year by U.S. economic magazine, Fortune.
“I’ll devote myself to nurturing Doosan into a global top 200 company,” Park said. He put forward his group’s top two management tenets °™ integrating the corporate culture of the multinational Doosan into a “One Doosan” concept and promoting human resources development for co-prosperity between company and employees.
“Doosan has evolved amid lots of change during its 116-year corporate history, transforming itself into a group focusing on infrastructure support business and growing into a multinational corporation with about 39,000 employees in about 30 countries through global expansion, and we have unified values and mindset despite our different backgrounds and locations,” he said.
A too-rigid performance system in which constituents stage endless competition and suffer repeated mechanical culling cannot yield sustainable growth in the long term perspective, but there should be a “warm-hearted” merit system in which employees can contribute to performance while they feel self-development and self-esteem, he said. To this end, Park urged everyone to devote themselves to ensuring sustainable growth while securing excellent products and technologies that would not be dislodged by markets and competition.
Park’s remarks may be construed as the group’s strategy to strengthen its competitive edge by integrating its corporate culture and developing human resources.
Doosan Corp., the holding company of the Doosan Business Group, held a board of directors’ meeting on March 31 and gave the green light for inaugurating Doosan Corp. CEO Park as the chairman of the company’s board of directors, which externally represents the business group. Park’s inauguration comes in accordance with the precedent of rotating the group chairmanship among the brothers of the late father and first chairman, Park Doo-byung. The outgoing Group Chairman Park Yong-hyun will serve as chairman of the group’s foundation and chairman of the Korea Mecenat Association.
Park’s inaugur-ation as the new group chairman is expected to gain momentum in the group’s changes and growth now that he has so far virtually managed major tasks of the group and day-to-day operations, industrial analysts said.
The new group chairman has been credited with his leading roles in restructuring the group’s consumer product-intensive business portfolios into a conglomerate focusing on infrastructure support business through M&As during the mid-1990s.
Park has been acclaimed for helping the group successfully execute 17 M&As since 1998. He has been praised for his roles in the resurgence of Doosan Business Group °™ growing Hankook Heavy Industries, which Doosan Business Group acquired in 2000, into Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co., and transforming Daewoo Heavy Industries Machinery, acquired by the business group in 2005, into the world’s No. 5 machinery maker, Doosan Infracore. The business group also took over British-based Mitsui Babcock, now Doosan Babcock, in 2006, the U.S. based Bobcat in 2007, and Czech-based Skoda Power in 2009.
Thanks to the M&As, the business group has evolved into a global player, which has seen its sales jump about 8-fold from 3.4 trillion won in 1998 to 25.2 trillion won in 2011. During the same period, the group has established itself as a global player in the industrial goods sector, which has seen the portion of overseas revenues soar from 12 percent to 39 percent and the percentage of sales from consumer products decline from 33 percent to 10 percent.
The new group chairman is also noted for stressing seamless communications with junior company officials and human resources development. He himself once wrote ad copy proclaiming, “Human Beings are the Future.”
Park, 57, received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Seoul National University and an MBA from Boston University in the United States. He began his career as an official of Korea Exchange Bank before entering Doosan E&C in 1982. He held positions at Doosan Beverage, Oriental Beer, Doosan Corp.’s strategic planning headquarters and Doosan Infracore before rising up the hierarchy to become the group’s chairman.

New Doosan Group Chairman Park Yong-man gives a speech at his inauguration ceremony at the group's headquarters in Seoul on April 2.

Doosan Corp. Chairman Park Yong-man is awarded the Order of Industrial Service Merit, Gold Tower in recognition of his significant roles in the restructuring of Doosan Group at the Commerce Day anniversary event.