There are many digital leaders from Korea who once worked for Samsung at one stage in their career. Especially many founders of tech startups based in Korea are Samsung alumni including the founder of Naver and Kakao messenger, both of which achieved tens of billions of dollars valuation.
Samsung has been hiring tens of thousands of the smartest graduates across Korea for decades and evolved through multiple stages. Now Samsung became the world leader in semiconductor and smartphone. But fifteen years ago, SONY was the coolest digital brand and Samsung could not catch up with SONY. SONY TVs were always more expensive than SAMSUNG.
My first career started at Samsung group as many classmates of mine did. When you graduate from the number one University in Korea and your major is business, you typically find your job at national banks, government or Samsung or LG group.
Samsung was very serious, obsessive and unique in team education and spent huge amount of money. New employee education including on the Group level and on the division company level lasted a few months. You get paid not by working at all but by being educated for the first several months. They taught you like your parents. Classes include philosophy, attitude and even vision as a global leader. Sounds boring? Samsung was yet to be the top global leader two decades ago.
How did I become a digital strategist?
Part of my work attitude was strongly influenced by my first career at Samsung, even though I worked for Samsung for a short period before I moved forward to found my startup.
SEUNGHO HA
SAMSUNG Alumni
MSc, Seoul National University Business School
Founder Funded by Two Venture Capitals.
Digital Strategist
Innovation Strategy
Web, Mobile and Social Marketing