Telecommunications giant KT is hiring more foreign employees under Chairman Lee Suk-chae, the firm said Monday.
As of the end of March, KT had 26 foreign employees on full-time contracts, compared to three in 2010 and only one foreigner in 2009.
Sixteen are American, followed by three British, two Canadians, two Indians and one each from Japan, Russia and New Zealand.
The firm said it is going to be more aggressive in increasing its number of non-Korean staff as it pushes to diversify its business structures and become truly global.
“Over the last few years, KT has been consistent in hiring more non-Koreans as we believe foreigners will significantly help us effectively push for globalization,” a company spokesman said.
The foreign employees are currently involved in the company’s key projects and their role is expected to expand as KT becomes less reliant solely on the local market.
Frank Trevino is team leader at the Americas/Network Business Department inside KT’s Global Business Unit. His main job is to handle KT’s global alliance management-related projects. Devendra Katiyar, who holds a management position, runs its U-Cloud software development.
KT runs a system to help foreign employees settle into the company, offering relocation assistance and a help line service.
These are mostly aimed at helping foreigners working at the company to proceed with their work with stability and to better understand the corporate culture, which is considered critical for those who have little previous knowledge of Korean firms.
KT Chairman and CEO Lee is investing more to find new business chances overseas. The company is the nation’s dominant fixed-line operator and runner-up to the market leader SK Telecom in mobiles.
South Korea is one of the most-wired societies in the world with Internet literacy exceeding over 93 percent, according to data from the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the country’s top telecom regulator.
But the local market is saturated, meaning there is little room for the nation’s three telecom companies to find lucrative new business chances.
By the time that Lee took over the top job a few years ago, KT had too many employees focused on local business. Lee believed the company needed to become a trendsetter if it wanted to prosper.
“To shake things up, Lee enhanced management efficiency and ordered Korean managers to find proven talent from multinationals worldwide, regardless of their nationality,” said a company spokesman.
KT has been collaborating with multinational giants such as Microsoft for the joint development of competitive content and is also eyeing Africa, the former Soviet bloc and Southeast Asia as its next target markets.
