SK : Chairman Chey Tae-won delivering a Key Note Speech at the 2017 Social Enterprise International Forum

SK Group's Chairman Chey Tae-won delivered a key note speech at the 2017 Social Enterprise International Forum, 'Let's make the economic size of Korean social enterprise up to 3% of GDP within 10 years'

- Suggested to increase the economic size of social enterprises from current 1,700 into 100,000 by 2027
- Chairman Chey, 'If social enterprises become the major economic entities, more social innovations will spread through the society'
- 'SK will provide a full support to make Korea become the easiest country in establishing social enterprises'
- Introduced this thought to support social enterprise establishment by constructing a 'shared infrastructure', which is to share SK's assets with the society

SK Group's Chairman Chey Tae-won is advocating 'Establishment of 100,000 Social Enterprises', which is to grow the economic size of social enterprises in order to accelerate social innovations.

On June 23, 2017, Chairman Chey suggested this during the key note speech of the 2017 Social Enterprise International Forum (hereunder Forum), which was held at the International Conference Room of the Korea Commerce Chamber of Economy and Industry. The theme of his key note speech was 'Social Enterprises and Change of Korean Society'.

Chairman Chey said, 'Within next 10 years, we have to foster 100,000 social enterprises in order to grow the economic size of our social enterprises up to 3% of GDP. When this becomes reality, the innovation made by social enterprises will spread to the whole Korean society.'

Currently, the economic size of Korean social enterprises is 0.25% of GDP and registered social enterprises are only 1,700.

Chairman Chey introduced Korea's first social enterprise Dasomi Foundation as an example of a commercial market's innovative change by a social enterprise. After it began a shared care business, the care market's operation changed from 24 hours of care into 8 hours of shared care.

In addition, after 'Silver Movie Theater' supported by SK became popular, the vicinity of the theater became a 'special zone for senior culture' and jobs were being created for seniors. This is another good example of social enterprise.

Chairman Chey emphasized, 'If social enterprises become an economic entity like these examples, their innovations will spread to the rest of the society and our society will drastically evolve into happiness.'

In order to achieve this, Chairman Chey suggested to make Korea as the best country in establishing social enterprises and also promised a full support by SK Group.

Chairman Chey introduced SK Group's various activities for activation of social enterprise ecosystem: Construction and provision of social value measuring system, financial support to social enterprises through 'impact investing' and 'incentives based on performance', exploring sales route for social enterprises through MRO social enterprise 'Happy Wings' established by SK, and fostering talented people by supporting KAIST's MBA program for social enterprise personnel.

Among these activities, the 'incentives based on performance' came into reality after Chairman Chey's suggestion at the 2012 Social Enterprise International Forum hosted by SK.

This is to give an incentive in accordance with an objective measurement of social values created by social enterprises.

SK Group gave KRW 3 billion of incentives to 44 social enterprises which created social values worth of KRW 10 billion in 2016 and this year the Group supported KRW 5 billion to 93 enterprises which created social values worth of KRW 20 billion.

At the expanded management meeting held on June 29, 2017, Chairman Chey said that he is seeking measures to construct 'shared infrastructure' in order to share SK's tangible and intangible assets with the whole society.

Chairman Chey emphasized, 'SK Group is preparing for a big change 'Deep Change' in order to grow bigger by improving its enterprise value. The 'shared infrastructure' will become the core of Deep Change.'

In particular, he added that the target is to make people establish social enterprises easily, grow their businesses, and solve social problems together through this shared infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the Social Enterprise International Forum is celebrating sixth year after being established in 2012 by Ministry of Employment and Labor and Korea Social Enterprise Promotion Agency in commemoration of the establishment of the first social enterprise in Korea in July 2007.

Attendees to the forum were social enterprise officials and personnel from social enterprise supporting organizations, including Lee Seong-Gi, Vice-Minister of Employment and Labor, and Representative Jin Young from the Democratic Party of Korea.