Korea's CEO President Who Rose From From Deep Poverty

from All Africa

By Godffrey Olali
Nairobi

At the height of cold war in 1964, a group of students from Korea University held a demonstration following the conclusion of a treaty normalising relations between South Korea and Japan, a treaty many Koreans considered unfair.

When a crackdown was done, Mr Lee Myung-bak, a fourth semester student and the president of the student body, was arrested for leading the demonstrations. Convicted of leading anti-government movement, Mr Lee, who would later rise to stardom and become Korea's 17th President several years later, was sentenced to two years in jail. He was freed after six months, but used his jail term to study, with his eyes firmly fixed on entering the lucrative business world.

Convicted of anti-government activity and on a government blacklist, Mr Lee found few companies willing to hire him. One day, he wrote a letter to then president Park Chung-hee, who was later moved by a small quote in Mr Lee's letter saying: "If a nation blocks a man from standing on his own two feet, the nation will forever owe him." The letter, appeared to make an impression, after which, President Chung sent one of his aides on the government's decision not to block Mr Lee from obtaining employment.

It was in 1965 and Korea's GDP per capita was no more than 80 US dollars. The country was in the midst of revolutionary change, with military regime in charge, determined to bring rapid development to the poor and the war - scarred region. One day, Mr Lee was scanning through classified pages of the classified section. In one corner, he spied on an advertisement of then little known company, Hyundai Construction.

"Lee knew little about the company other than it was mid-sized and apparently on the rise. He knew even less about the construction business, yet here was a company looking for employees to work on an oversees construction project in Thailand. It looked like a promising opportunity, and he jumped at it," says the recently launched biography titled; Korea's CEO President.

It adds: "And when the interview came, Mr Lee went to the Hyundai Construction headquarters in downtown Seoul, where five executives interviewed him including the legendary Hyundai Group founder, Chung Ju-yung."

The interviewers looked at Mr Lee's curriculum vitae and asked: "What do you think construction is?" Without even thinking Mr Lee responded, "I think construction is creation, because it creates something from nothing." His response reportedly made an impression, and a week later, he was notified that he had got the job. That, would mark a landmark career in the company which Mr Lee came to head years later as its chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

According to the book, Mr Lee's humble background and poverty, was the major driving force to stardom.

The President says in the biography that poverty was his best teacher. "Up to the age of twenty, poverty was my permanent companion. It was struck to my family like a shell to an oyster," he says.

Due to the 1945 Pacific War, Mr Lee's father lost his livelihood and the family had to move to a home in the mountains, situated on the site of an abandoned temple from Japanese colonial period. Lee's home, a one -room house, lacked even the most basic facilities.

"Not a single day went without the sounds of poverty - people fighting, stomachs growling and sick people dying."

Mr Lee as the youngest son, ran errands for a local brewery, and could purchase the cheapest meals to feed his family. At school, he would only drink water on an empty stomach, just to quell his hunger at lunchtime.

"Before I was conceived, my mother dreamed of a full moon that had climbed up her skirt. So she coined the name 'Myung,' meaning 'bright,' and 'Bak,' meaning 'wide,' " says the President who was born in Osaka Japan in the late 1941 at a time when Korea was in the grip of colonial control by imperial Japan.

"Even if I had to drop out due to lack of fees, I figured it would be better to be a college dropout than a high school graduate," he said. At the university, he was elected the student body President, a post he later used to mobilise students and led an anti-government protest in 1964.

After joining the Hyundai Construction as a mere entry - level employee in 1965, he rose to become its director five years later at 29.

Mr Lee goes into the books of history as Korea's youngest CEO at 35. Between 1977 and 1992, Lee served as CEO of ten different Hyundai affiliates, including Hyundai Construction. In 1988, he was named the chairman of Hyundai Construction at 47.