Korea TechWeek Series - A Wealth of Opportunities in South Korea

Professor Garrett arrived in Korea in 2007 to take up a fulltime faculty position at Korea University Business School where he is Professor in Marketing. Prior to his arrival in Korea, he was a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Tony’s main research and teaching focuses on innovation, branding and national factors affecting the adoption of new products from which he has published a number of chapters and articles in leading international journals such as Journal of Product Innovation Management, International Marketing Review, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of International Management among others. Prior to his academic career he had business experience in the development of international brands in the New Zealand market. Tony has been Chair of the New Zealand Chamber of Commerce in Korea since 2016.

Lukas Beech is a Partner at the Seoul Office of DHR International, which provides international corporate clients with executive search and talent acquisition in Korea.

For over 15 years, Lukas has specialised in guiding international companies to achieve their business goals in the Korean market, providing strategic and tactical guidance, access to sector-specific human resources, partners and customers. His local expertise combines with hands-on actions to effectively accomplish the business objectives of ‘western’ companies in Korea.

Lukas is also an investor in MissionHeroes, a talent exchange platform that can help New Zealand companies to accomplish specialized projects in Korea by connecting them with expert professionals who can execute those projects.

Lukas has also been a board director and advisor for The Kiwi Chamber since its founding in 2008.

Kitak Ahn has participated in a special robot project for more than 10 years due to his strong belief that industrial robots are too general and that educational and service robots were not practical. He feels fortunate to have continued his experience in special field robot projects which include blood testing, defense, underwater and nuclear-powered robots.

He joined Neuromeka four years ago, when he was able to finally encounter collaborative robots. Since then, he has seen robots spread to the market as easy, safe and affordable tools. It has been a lucky and joyful experience for him to participate in the management of a manufacturing company that mass produces cooperative robots.
As efforts have been made to lower costs so that Neurmeka’s products are safe enough to work with people, and easy enough for anyone to use, its collaborative robots, or “cobots” for short, are being deployed at industrial sites and in the service sector. They are also beginning to spread into areas such as agriculture and quarantine by combining with existing platforms.

As an experienced engineer, he is very pleased to be focused on the development and realization of business models as an executive and planner.

Yu-Sung Chang is Chief Technology Officer of SSG.COM, one of the leading online shopping and grocery companies in Korea and an online arm of Shinsegae Group, the largest retail conglomerate in Korea. His role includes customer analysis, personalized services, precision marketing and logistics optimization using advanced technologies.

He has been focusing on data-driven strategy and development throughout his career. He spent more than 10 years at Wolfram Research—the makers of Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha, which powers mobile personal assistants including Siri and Bixby—where he held various positions including Chief Product Officer. In 2013, he led the advanced user experience and R&D group at Samsung Mobile and spearheaded the launch of the Samsung Digital Health Platform and other advanced services. He has been engaging with several AI startups and recently cofounded Huma AI, a natural language-driven healthcare automation company. He led SK Telecom’s Mobility Division before joining SSG.COM, whose services includes T map, T map Taxi and advanced driver-assistance system maps for semi-autonomous vehicles. He served as a board member of Grab Geo Holdings—a joint venture between Grab and SK Telecom.

His topics of interest includes advanced computer vision, machine decision making, autonomous driving, natural language processing and the gig economy and its social implications.

Wang-soo Choi joined AuCom in early 2019 after more than seven years as Asia Sales Manager for a company related to variable frequency drives and soft starters. As AuCom's Area Sales Manager for Korea, Japan, Taiwan and most of South East Asia, he has more than 17 years of applications engineering experience with motors and automation systems, providing customers throughout Asia with the highest level of sales and support service. He also introduces products from New Zealand to Korea.

Jung Hun Lee has been the country manager since August 2007 of Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Korea, a company which offers a broad range of products and systems for use in respiratory and acute care and in the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea.

Prior to that, he was a product and marketing manager for the Domestic and Overseas Business Department of Listem Co. (November 2006 – July 2007), dealer manager for GE Healthcare Clinical System Device, GE Healthcare Korea (July 2005 – August 2006) and a Modality Manager for GE Healthcare Clinical System Device, GE Healthcare Korea (May 2003 – June 2005).

He is a graduate of Kookmin University (2000) where he majored in automotive engineering.