[THE INVESTOR] Having proved his competence as a CEO at LG Display and chemical firm LG Chem’s battery business over the course of around 10 years, Kwon Young-soo is aiming for similar success as chief executive of network carrier  LG Uplus.

The story of Kwon and Apple chief Tim Cook planting two apple trees together at LG Display’s manufacturing complex in 2010 to celebrate the partnership between the two companies shows his ability to establish amicable relationships with global business partners — a trait needed for a chief executive.

CEO Kwon, who is credited with bringing LG Display and LG Chem to the upper echelons of each sector, has pledged to make LG Uplus top global network player since taking the helm of the telecom firm late last year.

“The networks I have been building for some 10 years with global business chiefs of Huawei, SoftBank and KDDI have helped me do global businesses at LG Uplus,” said CEO Kwon at a press event at the firm’s head office in Seoul on Sept. 23. 

He added that the telecom firm would further seek to expand businesses beyond the domestic market and aim to become a leading player in the global market.

To that end, Kwon said LG Uplus would focus on collaborating with global telecom firms and investing in new fields, especially artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things – two of the hottest buzzwords in the information and communication technology sector.

“Telecom companies in different nations cannot compete against each other as there are high entry barriers in each nation’s telecom network sector, which enables different global telecom firms to more closely collaborate and work like one company,” the LG Uplus CEO said.

“LG Uplus will team up with at least one telecom company from China, Japan, and the US each and fully exchange each other’s capabilities and grow new global businesses together,” he added.

He anticipated that a partnership with a US mobile network operator and a joint project to establish the 4G mobile network in a global market, both of which are still under discussion, would bear fruit later this year.

He also spoke about LG Uplus’s efforts to secure future growth engines, saying that the firm had invested in two AI companies and was discussing with two more AI firms for share acquisitions.

The company is also focusing on its IoT business. Its IoT@home service that connects home appliances has attracted 430,000 subscribers since its launch last year, approximately five times more than similar services run by its competitors. 

The company aims to increase the number of subscribers for the IoT@home service to 1 million by 2017 and work with Japanese and Chinese mobile network operators to roll out similar services.

In addition to collaboration with global partners and investment in future growth engines, Kwon said nurturing talents was the key to growing a business into a global leader.

“I always try to remind employees that ‘great people make a great company.’ Nurturing talents is extremely important among other things as what makes a company stand out among the rest of the pack is its employees,” he said. 

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@herealdcorp.com)