On Tuesday 16 June, in the auditorium of Cremades & Calvo-Sotelo Abogados, the Spain-Korea Chamber of Commerce organised a conference entitled: “Small country, big impact: business, society and culture in South Korea.” The speaker was the economist Carlos Olave, who, for six years, from 2018 to 2024, served as LG’s Global Head of Human Resources at the company’s corporate headquarters in Seoul.
His senior corporate role at one of the world’s leading companies gave him a close-up view of the business, labour and social culture of this Asian nation, which in just a few years went from being a poor country to becoming the world’s tenth-largest economy. In his lecture, Olave described with great precision those aspects of Korean culture that have enabled the country to be so successful.
To a large extent, its spectacular development is due to the substantial investment made in education, as well as the work ethic of its citizens. Its major companies, such as LG, KIA, Samsung and Hyundai, amongst others, are established worldwide with products of the very highest quality.
But South Korea is going much further, and in recent years, in what is a prime example of successful public-private collaboration, it has promoted its musical, culinary and cinematic culture to every corner of the globe. As one of the countries that invests the highest proportion of its GDP in R&D&I, it is also establishing itself as a global leader in Artificial Intelligence.
Those attending the conference, keen to find out more about this small but remarkable country, asked many questions, which Olave answered with facts and examples drawn from his extensive professional experience in South Korea.
