[INTERVIEW] Korean-German chamber chief on 'cross-pollination'

Ingrid Drechsel, CEO and president of bayer Korea and chairperson of the Korea-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KGCCI), speaks during an interview with The Korea Times. / Courtesy of KGCCI

By Kim Ji-soo

Many people associate Bayer with aspirin. However, they may not necessarily realize Bayer was a startup too when it was founded in 1863.

"During that period, there was a ‘Grunderjahre' spirit in Germany, a founding or founder's sentiment. Nowadays, that concept is more commonly known as the American term, startup," said Ingrid Drechsel, CEO and president of Bayer Korea. She is also the new German chairperson of the 500-member strong Korea-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KGCCI). She was elected in mid-May.

Having spent more than three decades with Bayer, it seems natural that Drechsel is enthusiastic about startups. Leading Bayer Korea since 2015, she was ardent about prospects for the Korean startups as well.

"Sometimes, internally, I call Korea ‘Ko-valley,' because Korea is No.1 in IT. Sure everybody is talking about Silicon Valley, but Ko-valley is the entire Korean Peninsula," she said.

"If we can bring Korea's information technology and Germany's engineering and planning together, it would be a really great combination and cross-pollination for a better world."

She showed the most recent Bloomberg Innovation Index, which has Korea on top, followed by Sweden and Germany in that order.

"Cross-pollination" seems like a motto for Drechsel, a biologist who trained at Heidelberg University and worked in Germany, Indonesia and Japan. She also worked with Russian-speaking, Middle East and African countries. What she means by the word is to really "exchange things and learn from each other" for evolution.

"I believe all things evolve and there is evolution still ongoing," she said.

In that vein, she recommended that President Moon Jae-in take the opportunity to further Germany-South Korea relationships at the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7 and 8. Prior to that, President Moon will make an official two-day visit July 5 and 6, meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

"Germany and Korea have a lot of things in common, including their difficult histories and post-war economic development," she said. German companies arrived in Korea early; Bayer Korea, for example, arrived in 1955, she noted.

Having noticed the nine months of instability in Korea from the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye to the eventual election of President Moon, she cautiously suggested it's time for the Moon administration to stabilize and find agenda to develop further.

The chamber has compiled another set of recommendations for bilateral exchanges for the Moon administration.

"Offering to co-work in these fields like green economics, green energy, sustainability, and also (to avoid) unemployment of the youth," she said. Another bilateral cooperation is for the Asian country to learn from German small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Located mostly in southern Germany, these German SMEs provide the necessary stability to the Germany economy with their long-term thinking process.

"Korea took another path to development, and perhaps it was right back in the 1960s and 1970s," she said. "The president has good ideas. The question is how. Change is how you manage transition. It should be an evolution, not a resolution. It would be better to evolve things," she said.

The chamber has various exchanges going on regarding these topics; a noticeable one on education is a project with BMW and Mercedes-Benz and the KGCCI to provide vocational training to 90 young Koreans.

"The German style of dual education, where people can work at companies and then go back to university and then back and forth, is important because it can help companies have down-to-earth, and operation- and customer-oriented employees," she said.

Also, she and the KGCCI hosted an event called "Startups Meet Grownups." The chamber's Innovation Award, in its third year, recognizes most innovative German and Korean companies in terms of business, sustainability and digitalization, to help promote innovation in business and nurture closer bilateral economic ties.

As the head of Bayer Korea she oversees around 780 employees. Bayer first came to Korea in 1955 with Bayer Korea entering the agriculture area and then drugs for animals and then people. She has also infused startup culture within Bayer Korea. She launched its Korea version, Grant4Apps Korea with KOTRA this year. The three winning Korean startups — RecensMedical, Sky Labs and GomiLabs — are now working in Bayer's Korea office through to September.

"They are currently staying in our company. They listen and look at how we develop our business in a more structured way, and our people look at them to see how they flexible they are," she said.

She said when she assumed the stewardship of the Korea office, there was initial surprise that she was a female CEO. But things soon changed.

"My interpretation of the glass ceiling is that there is a glass ceiling for people who are more process-oriented rather than goal-oriented," she said. Future leaders, a significant portion of whom will be female, are more process-oriented, she said.

She had an interesting interpretation of innovation as well. "I like to engage people to try new things. The iPhone, self-driving cars and aspirin — these are innovations. But I also think of innovation on a daily basis, of doing things differently amnd doing different things," she said. For example, the three Korean startups in Bayer Korea are providing fruitful impetus to her employees.

One of the biggest pending mergers today is that between Bayer Group and Monsanto; she said there will be a global integration of the two companies once authorities approve the merger.

"As a biologist, I do not think GMOs are negative," she said, adding that GMOs will be controlled with a view to sustainability and social responsibility within the group's umbrella.

On profit, Drechsel said, "I am a true believer in ‘If you perform your tasks well, and if you engage the people and they do a good job, the figures will come," she said.

Bayer Korea's pharmaceutical division has grown double digits in the past three years, thanks to the strong performance of key products in the heart health, eye disease and oncology areas. Bayer Korea reported sales of 523.2 billion won in 2016.

On the future of Bayer Korea, Drechsel said it will continue to invest in the areas of cardiovascular risks and diseases, oncology and women's health care.

The company will also continue to invest in agriculture, to provide adequate support for aging farmers and shrinking farmlands in terms of producing more out of the hectares they have.

janee@koreatimes.co.kr