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| Title | Gas supplier dreaming of cyber venture | 2007.08.22 |
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FROM: Korea Herald [Korea Herald/ 22. August ] Gas supplier dreaming of cyber venture - (p.5) David Younghoon Kim, CEO of Daesung Group, is a unique combination of a scholar and an entrepreneur. Having earned master's degrees in law, business and divinity, he is clearly one of the most scholastic businessmen in Seoul. But the bookaholic CEO never draws parallels between his business blueprint and young venture capitalists from the early 2000s. The 55 year old CEO looks set to transform the group's newly acquired internet portal Korea.com into a hub of entertainment content, which provides a wide range of audio and video clips. "I will make Korea.com a hub of proteur created content, which is an improved version of user created content," Kim said in an interview with The Korea Herald. "Proteur is a newly coined word (that implies the combination of) professional and amateur. Korea.com will offer individual portal websites to these professional amateur content creators." The plan on the internet portal hub is the gist of Kim's efforts to tap new revenue sources for his 60 year old industrial group. Daesung Group has been heavily relying on the coal and natural gas business over the past decades, and is one of the largest utilities in the country. But after having inherited the business from founder and father Kim Soo keun in 2001, Kim has been consistently diversifying the group's businesses, even extending its holdings in the movie and culture industries. He took over BiNEXT Capital Co., a venture capital firm, in 2002 in a move to advance into the fast growing local film industry. The company has turned into one of the major financial investors in the filmmaking industry and a cash cow for the group. On the back of success in the screen business, Kim plans to reshape Korea.com into an international online video content provider that serves Korean and overseas internet surfers in various languages. The newly designed website will be launched in the coming months. "I really have a lot of fun in this business. I often attend brainstorming meetings and help the staff create innovative ideas," Kim proudly said. Kim also hinted at taking over more internet and marketing firms in a bid to further foster the internet portal business. His insatiable entrepreneurship drive does not end in movies and cyber space. Based on a stable cash flow from the group's gas sales, David Kim has been aggressively plowing money into renewable energy development projects. "Northeast Asian countries rapidly increased the consumption of fossil fuel thanks to the ample cash they held. But the Kyoto Protocol and energy security concerns pose big risks to us," he said. "Renewable energy sources can resolve the dilemmas of the region." The CEO's environmental keenness has resulted in his group's substantial additions of green businesses. The group embarked on a project to develop a green city covering about 3.3 million square meters near the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, which will be run by solar and wind energy, in May. The so called Genghis Khan Eco Energy Park aims to stop the desertification of the region through vast underground water resources and electricity from wind and solar power. The group has also been pushing various echo projects ranging from a solar energy development to a landfill gas power plant. "I want to be an investor in public interest," Kim said. "I hope my new businesses are fruitful to me and society as well." By Ko Kyoung tae (kkt@heraldm.com) |
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| NO | Title | Date |
|---|---|---|
| 152 | APEC Business Summit 2007 | 2007.09.06 |
| 151 | APEC Business Summit 2007 | 2007.09.06 |
| 150 | Gas supplier dreaming of cyber vent... | 2007.08.22 |
| 149 | The Church Must Address the Dangers... | 2007.08.16 |
| 148 | Energy and the Environment Together... | 2007.08.07 |
