Subaeys secrets of success as CEO

By Oh Young-jin

There is no single royal road to travel down to become a remarkable chief executive officer (CEO).

Of course, the bottom line is important because, after all, companies exist to make a profit and work to boost it.

Indispensable to achieving these goals is a CEO’ skills to motivate his employees. The difficulty of the task is made plain in the U.S. television reality show, Undercover Boss.

For CEOs who work in foreign countries, the job can be doubly difficult. A language barrier is one big factor, while cultural differences can be another.

By this standard, Ahmed Subaey, CEO of S-OIL, strikes a unique chord in his effort to overcome these challenges and bring himself closer to his Korean employees. S-OIL is a joint venture between Saudi Arabiia’s state-run Aramco and Hanjin Group of Korea.

First, Subaey’s bottom line is solid. S-Oil is the third largest of four refineries in Korea after No.2 SK Innovation and No. 3 GS Caltex. The fourth is Hyundai Oilbank that is the only one among the four that doesn’t have lucrative petrochemical sectors.

His excellent job performance may be attributed by and large to riding the wave the refinery industry is sailing on but his leadership, according to some sources, is playing a role that must not be underestimated.

First, he catches his employees off guard ― not with bad intentions.

For instance, the 50-year-old Saudi national made a suggestion out of the blue during an executives’ meeting last November. His suggestion was that all executives wear Korean traditional costume, hanbok, to the year-end party they would attend with their wives, in December. Some executives were not happy about the idea at first, fully aware of the inconvenience of wearing hanbok.

However, the year-end party turned out to be a great success.

That was not just because it was a costume party but also because he asked everyone to do something unexpected.

Asking for 20 minutes unscheduled in the elaborately-planned two-hour event, Subaey spoke to about 35 executives one by one and talked about their achievements for the past year. He didn’t send any preparatory memos for this stunt.

Obviously, the executives felt proud to be complimented by their boss in front of their spouses. It is well known that Korean executives are a hard-working breed rarely given the chance to spend quality time with their families. In other words, they may yell at their subordinates (not often, hopefully) but submit to their wives, when they are at home.

According to some officials, an executive, who prepared the event, bantered to Subaey, that he had taken up 40 minutes rather than the slated 20 minutes he had asked for and wreaked havoc on the party schedule. He told him that he used the 20 minutes as he had requested, pointing out that the other 20 minutes were used by the translator.

Regarding his affection for hanbok, he was the only one who wore it during a ceremony to commence work this year in January. He didn’t enforce the same suggestion he made for the year-end party.

Subaey appears to be practical.

Over at LG Electronics under Nam Yong, who was replaced by Koo Bon-joon, a number of foreigners were brought in as C-level officers. Nam was known to have a good command of English and is a firm believer in globalization.

One change Nam introduced was the use of English as the main language during their important meetings. Nam’s initiative resulted in Korean executives, who were not proficient in English, having meetings of their own after the meeting, comparing their notes with each other and trying to piece the details together.

The same thing happened when Subaey first took the job in Korea three years ago.

So he quickly addressed the issue by initiating simultaneous translation.

However, these personal anecdotes highlight only a part of what sets him apart from other executives.

Under his leadership, S-OIL has raised its corporate social responsibility. The oil firm’s support for children of firefighters who were killed or injured in the line of duty represented the human face of the firm.

It is not just an increasing number of S-OIL gas stations with yellow signboards with a motif of palm branches that brings it closer to consumers.

The idea of supporting firefighters originates from lower level office staff. It was one morning when an employee read an article about the death of a firefighter and the plight of the surviving children. He forwarded it to the firm’s CSR section that was looking for ideas and suggestions. However, it was Subaey that made it stick by making it his priority to participate in all ceremonies honoring them.

The executives said that they have overcome some alienation they could feel from working for a partially foreign company.

Subaey has now completed his third year in Korea, a usual stint for an S-OIL CEO but there has been no announcement from its headquarters about his replacement increasing the possibility that his Korean tour of duty will be extended.

For the longer term, there would be a lot on his docket ― completion of a big addition to its Ulsan factory Perhaps he may even be given the chance to restart a new large scale facility that has been put on hold for years.

If we can hear first-hand about what he thinks in terms of business and the role of companies within society, it could be doubly beneficial.