Breaking new ground

Sam Lee, right, the founder and CEO of InnoCSR, shakes hands with Pedro Nueno, a professor at his alma mater, CEIBS, in the school’s Beijing Campus, Feb. 18, 2011. InnoCSR signed a corporate partnership with the business school with the plans to launch a CSR conference at the Beijing campus and to debut the consultancy’s CSR rankings for Chinese companies in partnership with the Fortune magazine’s China edition. / Courtesy of CEIBS

MBA helped Korean set up CSR consultancy in China

By Kim Da-ye

Sam Lee founded InnoCSR in Shanghai in 2008 after studying for an MBA from the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) between 2005 and 2007.

Lee’s interests in corporate social responsibility (CSR) began early, when it was still an unfamiliar term in the business world. He worked for the Beijing office of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) after majoring in management at Korea University.

Lee is the CSR chair of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China and the Asian representative of the Academy of Business in Society, an association to promote sustainable business practices.

The Korean CEO says the network of people is the biggest asset he gained from the CEIBS. He advises that in order to make the most out of an MBA program, students should decide what they want to do as early as possible.

Q:

Why did you decide to do an MBA?

A:

I was in charge of corporate donations at UNICEF in Beijing for around three years and met some 300 companies. I wanted to get to know China better. Because I wasn’t so fluent in Chinese — we spoke English at UNICEF, I decided to pursue an MBA, which is mostly taught in English. I did a lot of research about business schools in China and I later even wrote a book about the top 10 MBA courses in China. “China MBA” is still being sold.

Why did you choose the CEIBS? What did you like about the school?

It was appealing that I could study both China and Europe — the school is jointly set up by the Chinese government and the European Commission. It also provided opportunities to learn about many multinational companies. I considered the CEIBS and the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST), and was attracted more to mainland China. I applied only to the CEIBS.

You get to interact a lot with Chinese students. They were different from other Chinese I had met. They were much more proud of being CEIBS students than foreigners were. I loved discussing China and the Asian economy with them.

What was the most memorable event during your studies?

I knew from the very beginning that my interests lie in CSR. Professors had just begun researching the subject, so I received much attention from them.

A professor one day told me that part of the funding from the European Union must be spent by the students, preferably on the subjects of CSR and sustainability.

In Spain, students of the IESE Business School organized the “Doing Good and Doing Well Conference,” a leading student-run conference on responsible business. It became influential as one unethical company was named at the conference and an alliance of MBA students wouldn’t apply to the firm.

We wanted to organize something like that for Asia. We created the “Being Globally Responsible Conference,” and I chaired the first event in 2006. We invited students from some 30 schools in Asia.

It is now an annual, organized event — members elect the chairperson and raise funding for it. Some keynote speakers at the conferences include actor Jet Lee and Dipal Barua, the deputy managing director of Grameen Bank. This year, I heard that basketball player Yao Ming has been invited.

How did you found InnoCSR?

I initially wanted to work as a CSR manager for large corporations. When I contacted a few companies back then, junior managers in public relations teams were in charge of CSR. They were checking how much donation the companies made and organizing events. It wouldn’t make sense for companies to hire a foreign student with an MBA degree for such junior positions.

I decided to work for a consulting company, and a company that showed interest in CSR said I would have to create the function from scratch. I thought I’d rather set up my own company than doing the same while working for someone else.

I, however, still lacked consulting skills necessary to start my own consultancy. I wanted to work for a consulting firm for a year or two, preferably where I wouldn’t be too occupied but would learn a lot. Trilogy Consulting based in Hangzhou was such a place, which provided a relatively flexible working environment. I reported to senior managers in the U.S. who all came from major consulting firms.

After a year and a half, a massive earthquake struck Sichuan province, and people started talking about the needs for CSR. Companies realized that they needed some direction when they make donations. It was the time to start my own business.

How did the MBA degree from the CEIBS help you found your own company and manage it?

The most powerful asset of the CEIBS is its alumni network. I did my undergraduate studies at Korea University, which is also famous for its alumni network. It’s kind of too big, though. The CEIBS has about 10,000 alumni across the world — the perfect size to allow alumni to take care of each other.

InnoCSR is a foreign-owned company, and foreign companies, in general, face limits in the consulting business in China. In my case, I received investment from an alumnus of the executive MBA program. Many of our clients are also CEIBS alumni. I often say that I made very good choices on three Cs — China, CSR and the CEIBS.

Many students don’t make the most out of the alumni network. Students, for example, should also try to meet and visit with people in the CEIBS’ executive education program. As students, some people don’t know what they want or feel shy. You need to decide as soon as possible what you want, and expand your network accordingly.

When you try to network as a student, you face little hostility. Almost everyone says okay when you suggest a talk over a coffee. Once you start working, people tend to be more careful to meet you because of possible conflicts of interests.

What was it like for a Korean to set up and run a company with the diverse workforce in China?

In China, I feel that many Koreans remain “frogs in the well.” I believe that young people should go abroad and China is the place where the talented gather.

I hire people from all nationalities because I was going to have multinational and Chinese firms as clients. I’ve been running InnoCSR for five years, and Korean companies began hearing about us and approaching us. The Korean companies want to do something in China but do not know what it should be. They tried something on their own, but found it not so effective.

When things don’t work out and you ask the Chinese why, they say that’s how things are in China. To execute CSR activities, you have to look at social, political and environmental factors and should be able to report those to the headquarters.

Some 80 percent of our clients are multinational entities including Intel, Dow Chemical and IBM. The Chinese clients include Lenovo and Tencent while we’ve worked for AmorePacific and Hyundai Motor’s Chinese operation.

I strongly recommend running your own business in China. We say that when things go too well in China, it must be a fraud. Going through difficult times here helps a person grow.

China is a market of a whole different size. If you pitch yourself as a Korean, you will get to work for Koreans and Korean businesses only. Pitch yourself as an Asian and your specialty as Asia. You will then be welcomed by many companies.

What is your advice for those planning to do an MBA?

Every business school has its strengths. You have to first figure out how you are going to make the most out of the school. The earlier you find the answers to why you are doing an MBA and what you are going to do afterward, the more beneficial an MBA is going to be. It gives an opportunity for you to build knowledge in the area of your interest and dig deep into the subject through discussions with professors. Make the most out of that opportunity.