Episode 11: From Uncertainty to Impact: How SK Group is Scaling Innovation Across Borders with Hee S. Jung

In this episode of Inside CVC, we sit down with Hee S. ("Hee") Jung, CEO of SK Chemicals America and head of SK Group’s corporate venture investment operations in North America. Just days after SK Group announced strong earnings in South Korea, Hee offers an inside look at how the conglomerate is navigating today’s global headwinds—from regulatory shifts and tariff challenges to geopolitical uncertainty—while doubling down on innovation that delivers operational value.

Hee shares how SK has shifted its innovation strategy from long-term moonshots to near-term impact, embedding pilots and partnerships into operational KPIs and empowering teams to adopt AI, robotics, and cybersecurity solutions. He also talks candidly about working with startups, the importance of localized strategy, and how trust from leadership enables long-term vision even amid quarterly pressures.

Whether you’re a founder looking to partner with a global corporation or a corporate innovator trying to scale new technology from within, this conversation offers real-world strategies for aligning innovation with execution—across borders, business units, and cultures.

Transcript

Steve: 0:00

Welcome to Inside CVC, the podcast that brings together leaders in innovation and capital investment to explore the trends shaping the business of corporate venture capital. I'm your host, Steve Smith, and along with Philip Willigman, we're speaking to corporate investors, entrepreneurs, and ecosystem builders driving the future of innovation. Each episode, we dive into the strategies, partnerships, and big ideas behind venture investing at the intersection of business growth and emerging technology. Inside CVC is brought to you by UPath Advisors, helping corporations and startups unlock sustainable growth through strategic partnerships. To learn more, visit UPath In today's episode, we're joined by Hee-Suk Young, who wears multiple hats across SK Group, leading corporate venture investment, running operations in North America, and serving as CEO of SK Chemicals America. This conversation comes just days after SK announced strong earnings in South Korea, a signal that its strategy of balancing operational excellence was smart and efficient. targeted innovation is delivering real results. He gives us a rare inside look at what's driving that performance and how his team is adapting to a global landscape defined by uncertainty and opportunity. From navigating regulatory and geopolitical headwinds to shifting SK's innovation thesis from long-term moonshots to near-term operational wins, he talks about how change really happens inside a legacy organization. He shares candid insight into embedding innovation into KPIs, the challenges of working with startups, and why localized strategy matters now more than ever. So what does it really take to scale innovation across borders in uncertain times? How do global corporations balance short-term earnings pressure with long-term commitments? And what advice does he have for startups trying to break in and for leaders trying to drive change from within their own organizations? Let's get into today's conversation. Keith, thanks so much for joining us today on Inside CVC. How are you? Very good, and thank you very much for having me. Well, it's a pleasure. Thank you for taking some time out of your busy schedule to join Philip and I on today's episode. Why don't we hop in? You wear a number of different hats within your organization. Could you describe, maybe kick us off, what's the business environment right now? What are some of the headwinds that you are tackling that you're finding challenging? What are some of the opportunities that are perhaps rising to the top of your agenda?

HeeSuk: 2:52

I guess the words that I would use to describe or be able to answer your question would be uncertainties and ambiguities. I say that because of Various reasons like geopolitical issues, regulations, tariff situations, macro and microeconomic perspectives, and areas that I've mentioned are creating confusions and disagreements, and big waves are shifting and transitioning from one to another. So at times like this, especially for Asian CBCs have more difficulties to keep their positions in the company. And diving into that question of momentum and creating headwinds have definitely been regulations and tariff situations for us. Clean tech, electrification of everything, hydrogen economy, green chemicals, and so on are facing challenges with Chasm in the industry and with current administration. On top of that, There is tariff situations where additional costs are inevitable, which pushes the producers to use cheaper energy sources and materials to stay competitive. But the cost will eventually increase, which will then enhance the contraction of consumption. Then there will be less sales and companies will need to start downsizing their productions, which would cause more layoffs and the job market could retrench. And this negative chain of reaction keeps occurring. So I may have oversimplified the interactions between but it is something that we see and expect as the headlines.

Philipp: 4:34

And Yis, thank you so much for being on the show and giving that overview. We have had a few interactions over the last couple of months. And I mean, obviously, you're overseeing the corporate venture activities for SK, but also CEO of one of the very important business units. Given these dynamics you just laid out, what is the role of innovation at the moment? And where is it sitting in the priorities? And how has it changed in the last couple of months and also maybe in the last three to five years?

HeeSuk: 5:03

I would want to say innovation is a key to success of our company, but I cannot because it actually changed. There has been a shift on our thesis and focus from late 2023 and early last year. We rebuilt our market landscape, future solutions where we like to focus, and from long-term to mid- and short-term goals. So instead of looking at fusion, fission, hydrogen, or the whole energy transition to clean tech, we spend more time in solutions that could immediately help with current P&L, like operation excellency, operations improvements, more safety solutions that utilizes AI and robotics, and also looking more into cyber securities in plant operations. So there's been a big shift from looking at the future solutions and really betting money for the longer term. It's become a lot shorter to support the current P&L with the companies and looking at the return right after the investments. So there's been a big shift.

Steve: 6:12

I have to imagine that a lot of that is driven by uncertainty, right? This notion of I can drive innovation and invest in innovation in those areas that I'm certain about. And in the landscape that you described, I would imagine that certainty is around our own operations, those things that we can control. How much has uncertainty sort of played into this near-term shift that you're describing?

HeeSuk: 6:37

I would say enormously, a lot. Because of these uncertainties and ambiguities in the market, and we still don't know how this entire situation is going to settle. We have been more focusing on maintaining and also looking after the portfolio companies that we have. And we actually have been downsizing and also merging between SK companies and even selling some of SK companies to collect and save up more dry power. Because we know that there'll be even bigger wave coming into the market and we want it to be ready for it. And what is our core business as SK? What is not core business? And we want to get rid of those core business. But what is the standard that we want to keep? So we have a number of caring programs that we have. So number one is earth care. So we want to do everything green. We want to walk away or shift away from the petroleum-based products or the fossil fuel-oriented energy sources to more clean tech. Number two, we got to do everything for the people. So we look at people care. And the last one is health care. While we live, we want to live a healthy life. So those are the big caring themes that we have. And we are kind of going towards those shifts, looking at the right future and do the right thing. But that uncertainty has paused some of the progresses and are actually slowing them down. So those are the actions that we are taking to be able to meet up those goals that we have with a new vision and mission. But of course, things are slowing down because of that uncertainties.

Steve: 8:15

So as you balance sort of these areas of innovation in terms of product development, new capabilities, new sort of products for your customers, et cetera, and balance that innovation with operations, a lot of the uncertainty you're talking about certainly has geopolitical or is global in sort of the impact, but it's being driven out of the U.S. mostly in terms of some of the actions and what the current administration is sort of what they're leading with at this point. So my question is, how do you, It becomes sort of complex to balance innovation versus operations, not only in the U.S., but also globally. How do you manage that region

HeeSuk: 8:53

by region? That's a great question and also a very difficult question because when you look at the lash, like, you know, I think U.S. is at the head of the lash. So you just do a just small spin on it. Then at the end of the lash, there's a big wave on it. So all the geopolitical issues and global issues are coming into this one picture and it creates more uncertainties and disagreements. And being able to manage between the innovation and operations, having both of them under my watch, I have the biggest advantage for me to be able to listen to customers directly. And that has been the key of our success where we try to learn more of our customers' pain points and try to resolve their difficulties and trying to find the answers from the field and apply our learnings to our thesis and justify where we need to be. And this then helps to either invest or try a pilot or even to M&A and JV form of strategy as we strengthen our logic with a justification from the market. So being able to have those both options and fields of operations and innovations has definitely helped us to be a better company looking at the future. But of course, those geopolitical issues have been a very big uncertainty.

Philipp: 10:17

As you mentioned, you're very, very focused on climate topics, being more sustainable, but also giving some of the changes We're seeing in the administration, for example, right now in the United States, how are you guys actually approaching things like recycling, circular innovation around plastics, materials, given that you are obviously a global company, right? But how are you approaching this in the different regions and how are you able to make sure that you can keep pushing some of these innovations forward, even though you might be in some markets where Not so much support anymore.

HeeSuk: 10:53

That's another great question. Recycling is a big part of our strategy because we are trying to get rid of the term end of life and start promoting end of use by suggesting sustainable recycling options into market. And this is a big problem to tackle. And we are very serious to be a part of the solution. And for this, you need technology, affordable value chain, and the capacity to do this in a big scale. And for technology, we continue to develop new technologies internally and we constantly collaborate with startups to share our experience and know-hows with them to get to commercial scale and mass production and how to better operate plants and maintain them because a lot of the startups don't have the experience in those kind of operation experience or the field and how to make the whole value chain more economical and sustainable. And there's a lot of regulation coming in from different regions. Like US is one, of course, EU is big, but of course it's into 56 different countries and every country has their own regulations. But regulation is one piece and implementation of the brand owners is another piece. So being able to manage the regulation and the brand owners and when do we enter into the market is another big factor because if we are too early, we may not be able to last too long. Or if we come in too late, we're going to give up the market to our competitors. So the entry of the market is also very important. So we're looking at all different moving pieces and doing the dynamic reviews almost every week now.

Philipp: 12:34

So you're obviously also the CEO of SK Chemicals, and you have responsibility for a business unit How do you manage to bring in some of this new technology into the legacy business? And how do you work with your presidents or your direct reports to convince them or to motivate them to bring in some new technologies in order to achieve the goals you have around sustainability and recycling?

HeeSuk: 13:01

I am the CEO of SK Chemicals America. So I have been in Silicon Valley for about a decade and This new role has come in last year. So I've been the CEO only for about a year and a half now. But knowing all the innovations and the new technologies coming into the market, I believe many listeners in CVC would resonate with me that this is a tough part of our job. Meaning bringing a new technology or new business model into legacy business is a hard thing to do. And as the head of innovation and investment, I spent a lot of time getting the buy-ins from all other divisions to get the consensus that we need to do. And this involves countless communication with your internal teams, promotions and educations to the management. Then I try to embed the working with new technology to be the part of their KPIs. And this actually took me many years to learn this. And this brought us the most success where our activities become part of their goals. They're more serious about looking at new technology, trying out a pilot, and even reviewing new technologies. They're more serious about it because it's now starting to count towards their KPIs. So that has been the tactic that I've been using. and being able to bridge between the new technology and to legacy business and trying to create this culture of small success matters. Once they start to get good results from those pilots, then they're so excited they want to do more. But getting to that point has been very challenging. But one thing that worked out for me was putting that into their KPIs.

Philipp: 14:47

Just to follow up on that, obviously, I don't know if SK is organized. There are multiple individuals who have like two roles like you have on the one hand side, being responsible for innovation and CVC and the other hand side, running a business. Some of your colleagues may tell you, oh, you have obviously two to fight where you need to accomplish both the innovation agenda, as well as growing your business. But what are your colleagues are saying, or what is your boss, essentially your CEO saying to you, how are you managing this? Because I find it, obviously, if you have both the responsibilities of running a a business as well as doing innovation. It's kind of an interesting set and I haven't seen many people with such a big role and mandate.

HeeSuk: 15:28

I can say this now that I'm the only person in the company wearing multiple hats, being able to do different things within the company. So I am either very fortunate Or I am damn unlucky to have too many jobs and too many roles. Oh, you're very special. Or I want to say that special thing, but thank you so much for being positive. That's what I tell myself, but I don't know how my companies are evaluating me upon. But I guess for the operations side of it, because I've been in this innovation role for long enough, it's easier for me to embed the new technology into my operating teams because being in charge of these operations, I can simply suggest, can you review this? And they will act on it. But on the other hand, where I'm just working as the head of innovation and investment, it's much harder. So understanding where their pain points are is a very, very good way of learning what they are looking for. And from the head of innovation and investment perspective, My customers are the people working in the mother company. So understanding what they're doing is very important for me and trying to find a solution that actually helps them. And I'm going back to the KPI point. Understanding their KPI and their target for that year is very important because if I help them, then they will help me back. That's been the balance of learning from the teams that I have in Korea and learning from the customer directly from my operations team. Those have two different temperatures.

Steve: 17:10

You talk a lot in this conversation about implementing new technology, scaling new technology within your existing company, KPIs in a large conglomerate, very structured, not surprising, a lot like many global corporations operate. a lot different than the world of a startup. Can we talk about sort of these points of view that you have on implementing technology from the lens of a founder of a startup that says, How do you work with a company like SK? And frankly, how do you, those notions of what you said around KPIs and structure, et cetera, et cetera, I have to believe that that's a little bit different working with startups you're looking to invest in. So how does that relationship sort of change? How is that different in what you describe in scaling new technologies, implementing, growing those things, different when working with a startup, with a founder? And maybe what sort of advice would you give to a founder a startup that is looking to do business and seek investment from a large Korean conglomerate?

HeeSuk: 18:12

We are no different from other CVCs. We are a very strategic investors. We always search for startups that are aligned with our strategy. And if they have a plan to expand into international market, this is a very important piece because Once the strategy part works out, it is much easier for us to find a form of collaboration where we can invest or do a pilot or become their JV partner. And when you are looking to work with not just Korean conglomerates, but with any other international firms, there are many important success factors. And one thing that I want to recommend is giving a thought in the initial stage of your company how to make some portions of your technology be localized. Every country prefers to see different percentage of solutions coming into their countries be local, either parts, it can be equipment or labors and so on. So I would strongly suggest to have flexibilities in your solutions to turn into local contents. Then it's much easier for you to go into new countries and you already have this international mindset in your strategy so that when you want to expand into different countries, you can move a lot faster. So I would definitely recommend you looking into that flexibility part.

Steve: 19:35

Wonderful.

Philipp: 19:35

Thank you. Great advice. Philip? Moving a bit into, you know, you're from Korea. SK is one of the biggest, well, one of the biggest Korean, but one of the biggest companies in the world. Can you talk a little bit about the Korean venture ecosystem and also give an overview of why Korean corporates are so active in CVC and working with startups. Every big corporation in Korea since I have worked and lived in Korea in 2008 had activities with startups already. So I would love to hear your perspective on that, why that is and some lessons also you can share for people who would like to work with Korean corporations like SK.

HeeSuk: 20:16

That question can be tackled from different aspects. But one thing that I thought of was Korea is a very small country, as you know. It's a very small country. I believe that footprint of our country falls right into Michigan Lake in Chicago. So it's that small with about 50 million population. And doing business just within Korea is not big enough for many of the global companies like SK, Samsung, Hyundai, LG. They're all over, right? And that's because we have the mentality of trying to supply the solution that works for everybody. And of course, not one size fits all. So we try to implement different ways of doing business. And the important piece to get to that point is technology and be very open to adapt to new business models and technologies. And that's why we really struggle to find the right solutions to be applied in the business fields. And that comes with the fundamental technology. So Koreans are very good at using certain technology and turn them into right applications in their business fields. And yet we don't really make the fundamental technology yet. For example, ChatGPT, it's open AI, but we don't have a company like open AI in Korea, but we are very good at using ChatGPT. into business fields. So being able to use those technology into the applications is what we are good at. And also when you look at all these video games, for example, we don't build a video game, but the best players in that video game is in Korea. And when you look at Netflix, the platform itself is not Korean. It's from US. But the content that goes into Netflix nowadays, we're dominating right now. I mean, I can't just say we are dominating or we are not the only one, but we are taking some portions of their popularities. So what I'm trying to say is the way we think is coming from Korea, being a very small country, but the strong point that we have is a speed, agility, and also implementation of the technology turning them into something very useful in the applications. So working with new startups, working with new technology has been very, very important for a lot of the Korean companies. And that's what we are trying to monitor in the market. Are we really trending towards that goal? Or do we need to look at someplace else? And US having a lot of funds coming into US and they're deployed to different startups. And this is the right place to be to monitor those new technologies and be able to work with. So answering your question, it's from the given factors and environments that Korea is in. And we are struggling to expand and we are struggling to grow. And one of the ways for us to do is to work with new technologies.

Philipp: 23:16

One follow-up question to that. Over the last couple of years, I've seen Korea at every big fair, KOTRA and different government organizations doing amazing marketing projects. If it's CES, if it's the IAA, the automotive show in Europe, everywhere you see Korea. You mentioned, obviously, Netflix. Most people have seen Squid Game. So Korea is on everybody's agenda. What tips can you give a startup who would like to partner with somebody like SK? What do they need to do? What are you looking for? What are some tips for them?

HeeSuk: 23:48

I think a lot of the other... Firms are set up the similar way. For Korean companies, not everybody stays there forever, meaning there's a change in management and there's always change in personnel. So make sure that you are working with a company, not with a person. And I would really strongly suggest that what you are offering as your technology or service aligns with what the company is looking for, not that person is looking for. And I recommend that having the continuation of personnel and keeping the network and relationship with the Korean firms is also very important so that you can maintain the relationship and you can keep monitoring those alternation of strategies as you go. So that's one piece of advice that I would give to startups trying to work with the Korean firms.

Philipp: 24:43

Thank you very much. Steve, over to you.

Steve: 24:45

There is certainly a lot of innovation going around the world right now, and the speed of that continues to accelerate. I'm curious, what do you see as the next major cross-border innovation, whether it's in energy, whether it's in AI, whether it's something else altogether? What are you watching in terms of the next really emerging innovation?

HeeSuk: 25:10

I will change that question a little bit where instead of looking at the technology itself, I want to look at the market. So, and as I say, I think we already talked about it a little bit in the previous questions. Recycling work is definitely one of the big agenda for us. Everything that we use in daily lives, we need to recycle them and reuse it. It's not just for the companies, but it's for the earth and we want to give a better earth environment. our children. So I think that's a big goal for us to look at as recycling is a big part of our theme. We want to be the number one recycling company and we want to be able to recycle not just plastics, but all the textiles and anything and everything that we can recycle. We want to be able to put that back into production. So that is one big part. And the other agenda that we try to tackle is the senior market. because the overall birth rate is decreasing. And we see that being a big problem by 2060. And by the time 2060 comes, there will be more seniors compared to more active youngers who can actually contribute to the society. And how are we going to manage the senior market? Do we even have enough services for it? So we are looking at that senior market and recycling. And then we look at technologies, what can be most helpful for those two different markets. An AI agent comes in, physical AI comes in, and robotics come in. So they will all play their own roles in those two different markets. And of course, there are many other big markets that people target for, but at least those are the two agendas. under my to-do list.

Steve: 26:56

The senior mobility piece given from the world that Philip and I know each other from in terms of future of mobility and what I have seen from Korean brands at places like CES relative to how people move on the ground, in the air, whether they drive themselves, whether these machines drive. I have no doubt. It really just resonates with me when you talk about you and your leadership and your organization growing tackling senior mobility And I think about that more broadly. There are several Korean brands that I think are at the front of that. So that just resonates from that respect. I do want to go back to the recycling piece for a minute. And if you just sort of bear with me here, our very first episode featured J. Carl Ganter. And he is an advisor to the World Economic Forum. He is an advisor to boards of directors, corporations everywhere. And his point of focus is water. Water security, water scarcity, things like if you're going to put a data center somewhere, make sure you have water to cool it. And if you don't, right, is one example, the sort of downside risks that comes from making that sort of investment. In that conversation, I asked him, where does water and ESG overall fall on the priorities of boards of directors. And his point of view is over the years, it has fallen, right? They have pretty much taken a wait and see approach. His point of view is very clear, right? You can't wait and see anymore because the moment that you were fearing is here now, right? I'm curious when you talk about recycling. Same question. Certainly important to SK, certainly important to everything you're doing. But overall, where have you seen recycling fall on sort of the importance on the agendas of boards of directors? Has it moved? Has it increased? I'd love your point of view on that. Sure. That's a great question.

HeeSuk: 28:50

A lot

Steve: 28:50

of

HeeSuk: 28:51

people still talk about it and there are different news on the media every day giving different nuances to the market. But what I can say as of today, it is going to consume So we don't have to wait until 2030 or 2035. We think it's going to come a little earlier because people are starting to see the bigger impacts of environments and these weather forecasts and all these different things happening globally. It's all because of the earth. And of course, For the recycling part of the work, we think that this agenda is always on top of our discussions. And in the board meetings and in the big management meetings, we are always talking about recycling, how to do more and how to do it sustainably. So ESG is very important. We can't just recycle anything and just emit so much CO2 out of the process. So we need to do it right, meaning sustainably. We need to look at the LCA factors. We got to have low and lower emissions in the process and be able to recycle more and have the wide variety of different feedstock that we should be able to recycle. And when is it going to come? And everybody was talking about 2030 EPR coming in. And I think about two weeks ago, Oregon just passed that law for the EPR. And of course, more and more companies are going to be pushed to use more recycled contents and making their products to be more recyclable. So we think that the timing of this market will come sooner than later. And we're always talking about it. And we want to be the first one to expand the market.

Philipp: 30:23

It's great to hear your perspective. But given the geopolitics we're living in, so just the Chancellor of Germany did a speech last week where he essentially was saying Germany can't be responsible for saving the planet with only 2% of the CO2 emissions Germany apparently has. I don't want to fight him on the percentage. I think it's a bit more if you take all the products Germany is bringing into the world, slightly more. But how do you think we can actually really make an impact? And I personally believe corporates like SK and other big corporations in the US and Europe, they hold the key to do that. So what are your thoughts on really scaling these sustainable solutions and really making sure you're improving the percentage of recycled materials, for example, to something higher than 50%. But what does really need to happen to move away from pilots to really scale?

HeeSuk: 31:20

I think I'm going to have you an answer that is down to earth, meaning I talk with brand owners every day. And one thing that we can't get over with is the prices. So to bring in the scalable solution to recycling market is to have the willingness to pay. But before that, we need to be able to supply that is economical. So prices matter. And I need to find a recycling process that can really be low enough for the brand owners to consume them. and be able to make new clothings or make new products off of those recycled contents and be able to sell it at our same price or even lower than the prices that we pay for now so that it can be consumed by the end consumers. So I would say that economical factor will be the critical factor for this kind of scaling business to be. And that's the one thing. big hurdle for us as well. LCA part, as we put in more CAPEX into the process, we will capture the CO2 and we will just use better electricity sources and we will use better equipment to do so to be able to lower the emissions. But for the pricing itself, the price is too high. It's not going to sell. So the biggest pain points that we have is how to lower the price down.

Steve: 32:44

And that generally comes with democratization of technology. It comes with scale. We've seen that throughout commercialization. I often use the example of when DVD players first came out, they were very expensive. And obviously, they're very affordable now. I'm curious... How, in this world of corporate and shareholder value returns and this sort of short-term commercial pressure, how do you balance that with the time it takes to scale and really getting the value from those innovation investments?

HeeSuk: 33:18

That's a very good question because we fight over this long-term goal and short-term goal all the time because even the CEOs have their terms set. meaning they don't get to be the CEO for the next six or 10 years. They usually get re-evaluated every two to three years. And if you're not really making good performance, then it gets switched out to a new CEO. So we got to have both of the goals. long-term goal for the company and also the successors that we're going to have in the company, the youngsters who are going to come after us, and what's the right thing to do for this company. That's a long-term goal. For the short-term goal, we are looking at operations improvements and, you know, environments and safeties and cybersecurity kind of things for the short-term goal. So we are making progress on the long-term goal, but also making good profits out of the short-term goal. So we are chasing those two. And how are we segregating those two different goals? We have separate teams for it. And of course, we have different task force teams. And I am working on the daily operations, but I'm also working on the long-term goal innovations. So we have both rabbits that we are chasing after. And I think every company is doing the same because they got to make performance every quarter. At the same time, they got to look at three to five-year plan and five to 10-year plan. So they're both goals are being chased after. It

Steve: 34:45

seems like we sort of come full circle here in terms of where we started the conversation in terms of you talking about discipline and KPIs and growth. And that's when people really start to engage when they see that these things that we're doing are measured against how their performance and their opportunities within the organization. Well, it's that discipline, that KPIs that you talked about.

HeeSuk: 35:06

Exactly, yeah. And one thing to add is that SK is doing a lot of businesses in batteries or semiconductors that we're working closely with NVIDIA. And also, we are into health business, making medicines and vaccines. It didn't happen overnight. It was 10s and maybe up to 20 years of investments that we've been doing, and that was a long-term goal. And right now, saving the dry powder and getting ready for all these uncertainties and ambiguities That activity is being done for the short-term goal because we don't know what's going to happen. Do we need to buy an AI company or do we need to pivot and transform into another company? So those are the short-term goal to survive in the market. For the long-term, like recycling or senior market, that would have much longer span and we will continue to invest to have our positions in the market.

Philipp: 36:00

Just to push back on one thing, you are mentioning like every company is doing this. And they have to, obviously everybody has to balance it, but it's just something SK is really, really good at. You think everybody should learn from them or some examples where you really feel like you have like some magic sauce, how you're doing it, because obviously you're pretty successful. You're doing a lot of investments. You're bringing in a lot of startups, a lot of innovation on the one hand side, but you're also always hitting your mid to long-term goals. So you're certainly doing something right. And I do know companies who don't do that. Everything, right? So any thoughts from you on that?

HeeSuk: 36:37

I think what we have, I don't want to say or brag too much about what we do because we are not too different from the other CBCs. But one thing that I'm proudly presenting all the time is that the belief and trust that we get from the management. And when I say management, the people who own this company from shareholders and the management and the owner of SK, They don't think of it as like if you lose some money on the investment, they don't look at it as an investment and like get back at you. They look at it from the expense perspective. Things can happen. And sometimes, you know, we thought it was going to be very big, but eventually it dies out very quickly. So we have that kind of a trust within the company that we get continuous support from the top management and owners. And that gives us a lot of confidence and we try to do even better job. So it's been a great factor for our success. And I don't know if every company has that because every owners have different thoughts and cultures and different mindsets. But at least in SK, we get a very good support from the management.

Philipp: 37:49

Thank you. And I think it's so important to have the management support. So I can't stress this enough. Thank you for that. Steve, over to you.

Steve: 37:56

Yeah, why don't we close this out with your outlook? And I'd like to take a regional point of view. We've talked a little bit about the role Korea plays as part of its culture in driving innovation across various sectors. Your point of utilization of innovation that is created in other parts of the world. So your outlook relative to innovation in Korea across Southeast Asia is, Over the next three to five years, what do you think is going to happen in that area, in that part of the world when it comes to innovation?

HeeSuk: 38:31

I believe that we are spending a lot more time on retention of good talents. So innovation happens from people and we are actually losing a lot of our talents to other markets. And a lot of them are actually surprisingly going to Southeast Asia. So China is already big. But India is catching up. Vietnam is coming in. And there's more and more Southeast Asia countries starting to play a bigger role. And if you look at the whole market where U.S. is a big consumer, Canada and all the European countries, but the manufacturing mostly happens from Asia. So the manufacturing capacity and capabilities and knowing how to produce something is still important. resigning in Asia. So between the technology talents and the operation talents starting to be more being concentrated in Asia, I look forward to seeing more innovations coming out of Asia. So we got to look at not just Korea or Japan or China, but we got to look at other countries too and see what good things are coming out of there. And we got to be more open about using their solutions and actually bring that back to US and see if we can promote different types of work. So I see we talked a lot about other areas and industries but going forward eventually people are going to go back to the health and being able to live a more convenient and better life and people caring and health caring and also earth caring all these activities i think asian countries are going to be more aware of the problems that they need to resolve and there'll be more and more technologies come out of it and once they start to really act on it i think we can actually get a better feedback from asia to North America and European countries. So that's the innovation that I'm looking for.

Steve: 40:23

Actually, not the first time we've heard that on this show. We heard, we interviewed another individual recently who is responsible for taking a U.S. brand and growing it and building it in his home country of Vietnam and also across the region. And in that similar vein, his point of view and sort of his perspective was that leadership talent, high executive level leadership talent and cultivating that, nurturing that in that part of the world. Maybe to your point a little bit around very good culturally in terms of using innovation And he's working on bringing now that more leadership talent, higher echelon sort of talent to that region as well. And similarly, it's just similar to that I find that it is that talent piece that is the foundation, the similar foundation and sharing that perspective that both of you did and what the outlook is for that part of the world. Very interesting.

HeeSuk: 41:22

I'm glad that I wasn't too far off then.

Steve: 41:24

Well, it's consensus, right? I think it is a consensus that says, hey, these are the things that are going on in that part of the world. As Philip and I continue to have these conversations, it's interesting to see these correlations, particularly around individuals that have no idea, don't have the transparency in terms of who we're speaking with. And I think that you just, that sort of similarity between themes is just, it's a correlation. I think it's a corroboration of those sorts of things. And it's just interesting.

Philipp: 41:53

Yeah. Just to add to this, I was in Asia recently, in Singapore, and And it was also just fascinating how much energy and drive there is from Asian corporations, from the Asian government to bring things together. And when I say Asian, it was hosted in Singapore, but people from Korea, from Japan, from Southeast Asia, everybody was there. And just kind of like what you described, kind of like there's this willingness and this drive to bring new solutions, bring ways to get alignment into the market, which is just fascinating. So he really appreciate having you on the show. Thank you so much. I know we can go on for another hour now when we tap into Asia. But thank you so much for being here.

HeeSuk: 42:35

No, thank you so much for having me. And it was such a pleasant conversation that I had with you. Thanks so much.

Steve: 42:45

That's it for today's episode As always, thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time.