President Kwon Seon-joo of the Industrial Bank of Korea, has been chosen as one of the four figures in the financial community in Korea to have done an outstanding job this year.
The three others are Noh Jeong-shik, who set up three new IT firms and sold them this year, Pranid Mistri of India who was promoted to an executive at Samsung Electronics at the tender age of 33, and Fund Manager Park In-hee, who made the most profit in running funds at Shinyoung Asset Management Co.
IBK Kwon is know to tell people “it is not the wisest servant, but the servant who is the most sensitive at coping with the changes that will survive from crises.”
About a year ago, during Kwon’s inaugural speech, she quoted from Darwin that if one cannot avoid the mobile and “fintech” they should make efforts to lead others to cope with them.
She pointed out that IBK is at a crossroads: It will either jump in growth based on its half century history, or sink with the high-tide of change facing its road ahead.
The IBK CEO has been proven to be right in her analysis of the problems that the bank is faced with. The financial industry in 2014 has been jolted by a number of incidents, starting with an outflow of customer information from a credit card company, an internal dispute over management matters at KB Financial Group, and loan scams for KT ENS and Monuel, among others, while the banks have been struggling to make ends meet amid an economic slowdown.
Doubts on whether Kwon can do the job continue to persist, and a year later, those doubts have dissipated with high marks given to her for her management of the bank to get though the tough times. Kwon’s “Soft Outside and Tough Inside Management Style” has paid off, taking care of one crisis after another, calmly as they occurred, not getting mired in a large tide of trouble (except the Monuel loan scam). The bank’s strategy to be a bank for all people in Korea, drawn up by her immediate predecessor Cho Joon-hee, is still on tack, along with the bank’s special loan policy to expand loans to technology-related borrowers and support loans for SMEs.
President Kwon cautiously recalled that while the bank coped with one problem after another in steadily fashion, it never forgot to lay the base for operation next year to develop the bank further.
IBK installed the next-generation electronic calculation system to provide better service to its customers. Kwon recalled that she always thought about ways to develop the bank’s operations thorough the collection of ideas with staff. That happens via better communication with a foundation that the most important factor in managing the bank has been getting the organizational energy from the bank with all levels of the organization lending their support.
Born in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province in 1956, she graduated from Kyonggi Girls’ High School in Seoul and went on to Yonsei University, where she got her B.A. in English Literature. She entered IBK in 1978 and rose to the top of the bank’s management 35 years later, with 25 years spent in marketing-related units.
She became the second IBK career man to rise to the top position in the bank, following predecessor Cho Joon-hee.
The bank still has to take care of the Monuel loan scam. She looks ahead to the bank’s growth in 2015 based on her strategy that the power to cope with change is the key for to success.
Kwon said she has been in the process of collecting various ideas to cope with the challenges thrown at the business firms, armed with advanced IT, including setting up an special Internet bank.
