Kim Tae-won, CEO of SK Inno E&P, Explains Why He Walks 50,000 Steps a Week

[Asia Economy Reporter So-yeon Park] "'Happiness' is the ultimate goal of our company. The year 2019 was when the company changed its objective function from profit to happiness. This year must be a year of concrete actions to further enhance the happiness of our members. We aim to identify the pain points of our members, improve processes, and lead cultural change within the company, including myself as a leader."

Kim Tae-won, Head of SK Innovation's E&P Business, recently defined the meaning of happiness as "health, family, and communication with members" in an interview with the internal news channel.

Kim Tae-won said, "There are many links to happiness, but among them, I think 'health, family, and communication with members' are the most important, so I presented these three and want to bring about visible changes."

He added, "For health, I want to share positive energy with members based on the vitality gained through regular exercise and healthy eating habits, such as walking more than 50,000 steps a week."

Regarding family happiness, he mentioned, "To enhance empathy and happiness levels, I try to spend meaningful time with my family by taking tango lessons once a week with my wife, which can become distant due to busy work."

He emphasized, "To actively communicate with the members of the E&P business, we plan to hold more than 50 'GaenaSona' theme talks this year. 'GaenaSona' stands for 'in an open atmosphere, forgetting age and position, communicating and empathizing, me and our colleagues.' It reflects the will of leaders and members to communicate horizontally without rank."

He also stated, "Based on three keywords?Transformation, Innovation, and Happiness?we will create a sustainable new E&P."

Kim said, "Market uncertainty remains this year as well," and explained, "To cope with this, SK Innovation is upgrading the E&P business model to focus on Operatorship and concentrating the business portfolio on core regions."

Regarding the 'fundamental transformation' proposed as a way to build a new E&P, he said, "We aim to strengthen the shift from participating as a non-operator in block development projects to actively operating blocks and creating higher profit opportunities through an operatorship business model."

About strategic regions, he said, "At the end of last year, we established the 'Portfolio Innovation Office' through organizational restructuring and are continuously exploring new growth regions that will follow the successes in China and Vietnam, as well as non-traditional resource regions outside the U.S. We expect to bear fruit in the near future."

Regarding the other keyword, innovation, he explained, "We are expanding the application of digital transformation and artificial intelligence technologies throughout the entire business process, including exploration, development, and operations. The completion of innovation must be based on a management system that enables timely strategy formulation and decision-making in any region and business environment worldwide."

Kim described digital transformation by saying, "The E&P business's greatest competitiveness lies in discovering what cannot be seen on the surface, so it requires advanced digital technology. We plan to open a new horizon by combining optimization technology with long-standing know-how and data science capabilities."

Regarding the final keyword, happiness, he said, "It is the ultimate goal of our company. We want to find the pain points of our members, improve processes, and lead cultural change within the company, including myself as a leader."