Corporate Vision Issue 11 2018

16 CORPORATE VISION / Issue 11 2018 , Powerrex Global Co.- Ltd is a specialised trading company based out of Seoul, Korea. Earlier this year, the firm’s Owner, WooseokHoward Lee, was named among Corporate Vision’s 2018 Business Innovator Awards as the Innovative Entrepreneur of the Year. On the back of this well-deserved achievement, we spoke withHoward to find out the secret behind his extraordinary success. A Pioneer in Innovative Business Practices Wooseok Howard Lee is a person invigorat- ed with energy, and a passion for business. His entrepreneurial pursuits have taken him from the education and technology sectors to his current position as Owner of Powerrex Global Co., which was appointed as a special trading company by the ministry of indus- try, trading and energy in Korea. To start the interview, Howard discusses Powerrex and the other companies he has created alongside his business partners. “For the past few years, me and my partners have been running several businesses in the interna- tional trading, business consul- tation, technology R&D, retail and electronic commerce. More recently, we moved into blockchain by establishing a company in Tal- linn, Estonia. Our main company is Powerrex Global Co. My partners and I have established and managed a variety of businesses together since we were teenagers. Of course, some of the businesses have not been successful, but, we always love challenges and moving forward.” “We have companies in Australia, Estonia and Korea. We are doing international business consulting and trading in Australia and Korea. In addition, two research centres are located in Korea, one is to re- search industrial machines and the other one is a ‘standard institute of business and economics’.” “As an entrepreneur, whenever I face tough moments, I try to make a good balance between a practical and academic ap- proach.The animal instinct – a gut feeling – is very important, but an academic approach can offer a necessary guideline to see if what you are doing is right.” The conversation soon turns to the internal culture at Powerrex, and Howard’s approach to managing his businesses. “I can summarise our culture quite succinctly – self-disciplined freedom. Our entire organization is very young. The average age of all of our company staff is 31, including all of the di- rectors and the CEO. The industry that we are in is now very conserv- ative and must be conservative to make deals with the manufactur- ers. Conversely, our organization is free – we do not have a dress code. We do not force anything, but we try to make our members understand what successful people are like, and what they have to do to be successful. This is possible because all managerial level employees share the basic HR mindset that ‘ someone’s failure in our organization is the failure of me ’.” In his closing comments, Howard details his future business pur- suits, namely movements in the cryptocurrency market. “Now we are concentrating on crypto-asset business through our Estonian company named Howard Cryp- toAsset. My plan is for the compa- ny to change the world economic system through our blockchain processes. The current cryptocur- rency market is unstable, due to the limited nature of crypto assets, and the future is not promising without a well-established stable coin like ours.” “In addition, it is insisted that the assets are totally decentralised, but the assets are mainly traded in the most centralised market. More or less 1% of all cryptocurrency holders possess approximately 90% of the total crypto asset cap. Our cryptocurrency will be the only alternative to correct this situation because our system has a policy that investors cannot have much authorisation or control over the entire infrastructure. I understand that these seem lofty goals for a young entrepreneur like me, and sometimes some people criticise and say that “I’m just kidding myself.” Maybe they are right at this moment but, as time goes by, they shall realize that they’ve been thinking way too small.” “Only those who plan and dream big things can achieve big things. If you wish to win the lottery, you must buy a ticket first.” BIN18028 Contact: Wooseok Howard Lee Address: 402,173 Digitalro, Geumchungu, Seoul, Republic of Korea Telephone: 0082 2 851 8852