Eric Sung Him Wan, 31, is a would-be-graduate of the Yonsei University Graduate School of Business. He is now doing an Internship at Samsung Tesco. He has been exposed to many different cultures throughout his life. He is British but he was born in Hong Kong and pursued his high school education in the U.K. He got his undergraduate degree in Hospitality in Tourism in Switzerland.
I wanted to travel around the world and work in different places. After I graduated from International Hotel Management Institute in Switzerland, I worked in China for one year and in Los Angeles for another couple of years. After that I decided to do an MBA in Asia. I have always been fascinated by the growth of Korea over the past 60 years from a developing country to one of the world’s top economies.
I found out that Yonsei was one of the first schools to accept foreign students and that was the reason I decided to take the MBA program there. Half of the students are foreigners and a lot of nationalities are involved in every class. Students from different backgrounds give an opportunity to share various experiences and knowledge.
My favorite course was Global Business Environment. One of the most interesting aspects I found from the class is how culture influences the success of a business. I learned that business success at home doesn’t mean that it will be successful overseas.
Yes, of course. Samsung Tesco is an international company. A lot of employees are Korean, while many managers and directors are from the U.K. So sometimes there are some misunderstandings because how Koreans do business is different from how the British do business. Koreans tend to take things more on a relationship and long-time basis. In contrast, Europeans are a lot more result- and task-orientated. What I learned in the classroom helps me understand this kind of situation.
A lot of business schools tend to focus on existing management and strategy theories which are mostly based on Europe and the United States. Yonsei not only teaches about those theories but also offers insights about Asian markets. The key reason I came to Yonsei is to learn about Korea and Japan. The lectures at Yonsei deal with many current issues surrounding the Northeast Asian Market. They invite a lot of guest lecturers from Japan and China.
Many foreigners come to Korea to find a job but I want to tell them it is very hard to find a job if they don’t speak Korean. And the school is helping a lot to address those problems and find a suitable position for foreigners.
I wish to be in Korea at least for next two or three years after graduation and I do wish to stay with Samsung Tesco at the moment because it is an international company. And I want to have more experience in Asia for the next ten years. Gradually, I hope to be a general manager of a hospitality company with my experiences from around the world.
Interview by Kwon Eun-young