GS steps up its risk management

Huh Chang-soo

Business leaders are focusing on how to respond to possible risks that might be detrimental to the state of an already vulnerable economy.

Chairman Huh Chang-soo of GS Group, in particular, is on a crusade to prioritize risk management by proposing to set up a special department dedicated to this.

“If you get the timing wrong and miss the moment to manage risks when the economic situation is critical, you have to expend much more effort to fix the problem later on,” Huh said yesterday at a quarterly meeting with GS executives in Yeoksam, southern Seoul.

Interconnected economic crises that hit developed and developing countries and financial markets and real economies all at the same time are rare, he said.

“Companies’ futures will depend on how well they manage the current difficulties,” he said. “It will be important to show flexibility in the way we respond to the quickly changing business environment.”

He also said it is important to view crises objectively.

“No matter how skilled each employee is, there is a limit to how much information they can deal with and digest,” he said. “To overcome this, we need a third party to look over their shoulders and evaluate [their responses].”

By Lee Sun-min [summerlee@joongang.co.kr]