Infomag  ¡µ
HR Round Table
Aug / 2010
Mr. Jonathan Holmes , EUCCK HR Committee Chairman, giving out his presentation to EUCCK Busan members

The EUCCK Busan Office organized a dinner meeting on ¡°Globalizing Korean Corporate & the Leadership Conundrum¡± which featured a presentation by Mr. Jonathan Holmes, EUCCK HR Committee Chairman and Representative Director of Korn/Ferry International¡¯s Korea operations.

As Korean companies aspire to become successful international firms, their leadership ranks are stressed and stretched by the challenges of international markets. Foreign multinationals in Korea, often struggling to source leaders who align to their own internal environment have found their ranks raided by Korean firms searching for executives to kick-start their international operations.

The EUCCK Busan Office held a dinner workshop on June 25th, focusing on Globalizing Korean Corporates & the Leadership Conundrum.

Mr. Holmes started his presentation by explaining Korean market analysis and its potential growth with the following aspects. IMF: For the first time in history, Asia, not the US will lead the world out of a recession back to global growth. PIMCO2/ Goldman Sachs: US personal savings rate is likely to stay around 8% in the medium term, Asian savings rate will come down. Economist: High end, knowledge-intensive jobs will move to Asia, faster than labor-intensive back room jobs CIA5 : Asia will be at the cockpit of growth ¡¦ globalization will be increasingly linked to ¡®Asian-ization¡¯ and de-linked from ¡®western-ization¡¯.

Asia, from 2010 to 2020 will be characterized by 3 shifts; consumer, innovation and workforce. The first two powerful shifts in Korea are consumer shift which Asian Consumer upside is enormous and Asia¡¯s middle class is set to grow at an unprecedented rate over the next 2 decades and the Asian Innovation shift which is beginning to work and a new wave of innovative products are emerging from Asia. ¡°It is still challenging to find high quality leadership talent due to lack of international experience, cross-cultural skills, lack of innovation, inability to respond quickly to opportunities and high expectations of compensation packages,¡± Mr. Holmes said, emphasizing the weak point of workforce shift in Korean market.

Korean companies are responding to this weakness of workforce by bringing in talent with global perspectives from non-Korean MBAs from the top 10 US schools, hiring global executives (non-Korean) to head functions and reporting directly to the CEO but hiring global executives into highly homogeneous culture has challenges due to lack of integration into line management, failure to empathize with local leadership and resistance to change.

In order to globalize Korean companies and narrow the gap among the leadership conundrum, Mr. Holmes mentioned the top 10 Areas of Strength and Top 10 Areas of Development in leadership.


10 Areas of Strength
1. Customer Focus
2. Drive for Results
3. Functional/Technical Skills
4. Approachability
5. Action Oriented
6. Intellectual Horsepower
7. Perseverance
8. Boss Relationships
9. Ethics and Values
10. Trust

10 Areas of Development
1. Personal Learning
2. Managing Through Systems
3. Conflict Management
4. Strategic Agility
5. Creativity
6. Motivating Others
7. Dealing with Paradox
8. Developing Direct Reports and Others
9. Innovation Management
10. Managing Vision and Purpose

After the presentation, participants actively discussed and shared their leadership conundrum in their companies which created a fruitful session and a productive debate. The meeting truly encouraged interaction between participants and the panel.