The 13th Proud Alumni Award Ceremony was held at the 2025 Business School Alumni Association held on January 23rd. The ‘Proud Alumni Award’ is given to alumni from various fields of society who have brought honor to Sungkyunkwan University. This year, the 13th Proud Alumni Award was given to Won Ki-chan, an alumnus of the Business School.

Won Ki-chan (Class of ’78, Department of Business Administration) has served as the head of the Samsung Electronics North America General Management Support Team, the head of the Samsung Electronics Human Resources Team, the CEO of Samsung Card, and the CEO and owner of Samsung Lions. He is currently a non-executive advisor at Jeil Planning. Since graduating, Won Ki-chan has continued to show interest and affection for the development of the business school and for his juniors through consistent donations and special lectures.

1. Hello, you have received the prestigious alumni award from the School of Business Administration. Please tell us how you feel.
I feel embarrassed because I don’t think there is anything particularly special about it, but I cannot hide my joy at being given this honorable award by my beloved alma mater.

2. You have worked as a human resources specialist at Samsung Electronics for a very long time. What was the reason you started working in human resources?

Before joining the company, I was not very positive about human resources. I thought it was an administrative department that passively handled tasks that were requested. However, Samsung Electronics' human resources was a place that thought about and proactively practiced change, innovation, and talent development as a partner of management. In order to properly perform human resources duties at Samsung, you need to know the field well, such as development and sales, and to do that, you need to visit the field and meet people in person. Through these processes, you can go beyond your job and directly experience the flow of management, and you will have the opportunity to grow naturally. Furthermore, human resources development is systematically established through new employee recruitment, group and training centers, and talent development centers, so human resources development is carried out along with learning through practice.

3. You served as the CEO of Samsung Card and the owner of the Samsung Lions. Do you have any memorable anecdotes?
When I served as the CEO of Samsung Card, I remember the efforts I made to improve the quality of the company. In fact, the results showed that customer convenience increased and management efficiency improved as a result of marketing based on data analysis and the introduction and expansion of digital processes. On the other hand, it is regrettable that I was unable to expand the foundation for new businesses for the future due to regulations on the financial industry. As the owner of the Samsung Lions, I attempted various cultural changes such as improving the annual salary system to solve the cost efficiency issue of FA, and as a result, I finished the regular season in second place.

4. Do you have any memorable moments during your college years?

In 1979, when I was a sophomore, the university song festival was popular. To celebrate the May festival, the ‘Sungkyun Song Festival’ was held, and we hastily formed a team and went on stage after practicing for two weeks. Although we practiced for two weeks, our team was actually beginners who didn’t even know how to do basic tuning, so I remember running away from Geumjandi Square after being embarrassed. At the time, I was just embarrassed, but looking back now, I think it was a reckless challenge and memory that I was able to take on because I was young.

5. Is there a reason that made you who you are today?

It’s hard to explain in one word, but I think my military service in the 5th Division north of the Hantan River was the starting point. It was a place where I experienced physical limitations and learned mental strength. For example, when I had a mentally difficult time at work, I think it gave me the strength to affirm myself by saying, “I even marched 100km in full gear in 24 hours in the military.” In this sense, I hope you don’t think of military service as a waste of time. I think the interpretation and response to given circumstances can bring about completely different results depending on how you interpret them.

6. Lastly, please give a word to the students of Sungkyunkwan University.

There is a sentence that gave me a lot of thoughts. It is a sentence by Thomas Aquinas, “The most dangerous person is the one who has read only one book.” The world is not everything that you see, and there is always much more that you do not know than what you do know. In addition, I recommend that you do not treat the world, which changes every moment, with conventional wisdom, but always have an open attitude and have various experiences. I hope that you spend your college life, which is called youth, seeing, feeling, and learning as much as possible. Thank you.

Original text: Sungkyun Webzine No. 560, https://webzine.skku.edu/skkuzine/section/people.do?mode=list&articleNo=126136