Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn.

Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn, marking the group’s 66th anniversary on Oct. 9, stressed companywide innovation. His message may be construed to be based on his conviction that global companies, reeling from rapid environmental changes in management, cannot survive without innovation.

Chairman Kim suggested three keywords for ensuring innovation – diversity, challenge and cooperation.

In a commemorative speech in connection with the 66th anniversary, Chairman Kim said, “Looking at a fireworks festival hosted by Hanwha Group over the last weekend, I’ve remembered numerous Hanwha people who have joined forces until it is blooming for 66 years.

 “I wish to extend thanks to the founder who contributed to the development of the country by doing business, Hanwha old-timers, our partner cooperative companies, and people.

“The stark reality is that companies, praised as role models of innovation, are doomed to collapse if they ignore each business’s principles and fail to follow change of the times,” he said.

Kim called for continuing to innovate the group’s hardware and software capabilities to conform to the industrial structure of the 21st Century.

He also urged his executives and staff members to secure manpower who will spearhead an era of the 4th Industrial Revolution, overhaul its values and behavior modes, and advance its corporate culture to global standards. Chairman Kim called for Hanwha to be reborn as an innovative corporation through new spirits of the times.

Chairman Kim cited “diversity” and “challenge” as forces behind innovation.

“Hanwha Group has built up foundation for growth through numerous M&As for the past 66 years, manpower with diverse backgrounds have complemented each other’s weak points and maxed out strong points,” he said. He stressed a challenging environment in which resting on their success is feared instead of failures, saying that the most significant achievements can be made when they started from roads on which other people gave up.

Kim also emphasized the significance of “together” value. He called for settling down a corporate culture in which going together toward the finish line of success is valued, not going alone. He said the eliminating of conventional relationships between top dogs and underdogs and a corporate ecosystem in which win-win strategies can be pursued through shared growth partnership are the starting point of a scheme of making Hanwha a world-class one.

Hanwha Group Staff’s Volunteering Activities in October

True to the social responsibility Chairman Kim stressed at his anniversary speech, 61 business operations across the nation, belonging to 22 subsidiaries of the group, are conducting a relay of volunteering activities during the month of October.

About 3,400 group executives and staff members are participating in the volunteering activities. They include donating of coal briquettes, the installation of solar street lamps at allies in backward areas.

On Oct. 8, employees with the Seolak Business Headquarters of Hanwha Hotel and Resort offered free meal to neighborhood elderly people. On Oct. 10, executives and staff members with Hanwha General Insurance and Hanwha Investment & Securities participated in blood donation at the Hanwha General Insurance Building in Yeouido.

Staff members of Hanwha Chemical take time out to help the handicapped make ceramics at the Seodaemun Disabled Welfare Center. (Photos: Hanwha Group)