LG chief stresses customer values in New Year’s message

LG Group Chairman and CEO Koo Kwang-mo urged the company's staff and executives to take the lead in creating customer-friendly values, calling them “customer value creators,” in his New Year’s speech for 2023, Tuesday.

Delivering the video speech via email to staff around the world, Koo said employees should promote the "virtuous cycle" of growth -- where staff members’ personal growth create touching experiences for users, which in turn accumulate to support the company’s longevity.

“All members should think of themselves as LG’s main characters. It is how each member finds his or her own ways to increase touching experiences for customers that LG can become a long-lasting company,” Koo said in the video. The video also had English and Chinese subtitles for foreign employees, LG said.

“For this, each of you should think about who your customer is, and what values you want to deliver to the customer.”

Koo said his customers are LG employees, and the value or goal he pursues is to help all staff explore their own ways to create “touching” experiences for their customers.

“I will make sure your actions are acknowledged and lead to bigger opportunities and personal growth.”

Koo has been leading the nation’s fourth-largest family-owned conglomerate since June 2018. Koo introduced the concept of “customer-centric values” in his first New Year’s speech for 2019.

The video also included New Year's messages from other LG staff, as the company intended to share the voices of its employees, LG said.

Like last year, Koo delivered the New Year’s message at the end of the year so that the staff can “calmly wrap up their year and spend time preparing for the New Year when the year begins,” the company said.

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)