[Interview] Business Powerzone CEO Clara Min (Heejeong Min)

?"More than 25 years of business experience in strategic business driving positions in multinational corporations"

In Berlin, there is a special event taking place every year. It is AsiaBerlin Summit. It all started in 1997 when the city of Berlin organized the Asia-Pacific Weeks Berlin (APW). Since then, Berlin’s partnerships with cities such as Beijing, Jakarta, and Tokyo have been growing and since 2013 the focus has been more and more on "Startups and smart cities", highlighting Berlin’s connections with these Asian cities.

In recent years, emphasis has been put on connecting the Startup ecosystems and investor groups in Asia and Berlin. In addition to the city of Berlin, there are various institutions, including the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy, embassies and trade associations from each country, NGOs, universities, and companies working closely together for AsiaBerlin Summit.

Although the AsiaBerlin Summit is only held once every year, there are many other events hosted by AsiaBerlin Summit throughout the year for Startups from each country to visit and interact with each other, and various post-Covid online seminars and networking opportunities are already in preparation. The major players in the AsiaBerlin Summit are Startups and investment institutions from India, China, and Southeast Asia, while the number of Japanese participants is relatively low and except for a few individual ambassadors, Korea barely has any presence. But there is a reason why Korea’s Startup ecosystem isn’t well known in Europe yet. It’s because government agencies such as the city of Seoul, the Korean Embassy and KOTRA are not actively branding Korea with Startups.

?[Figure 1: AsiaBerlin Summit 2019: Asia has a special place in the Berlin Startup ecosystem Source= asia.berlin]

However, taking a closer look at the Korean Startups active in Germany, the situation starts to feel a little disappointing. Especially since there are quite a few Korean Startups active, in Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main, and Munich, as well as Berlin. But not only Startups, but there are also many people and companies that are playing an important role in connecting inside the Startup ecosystem.

I recently happened to meet three important women in the German Startup scene who are connecting Germany with Korea, China, and Japan respectively.

First, I would like to introduce CEO Clara (Heejeong) Min and her company "Business PowerZone."

"First Korean senior director of Adidas’ headquarters in Germany"

Business PowerZone is based in Nuremberg, Germany. It helps Startup people and Entrepreneurs. Because nowadays talented people from all over the world are working together, Business PowerZone consults global companies on the importance of "cultural differences".

The company’s CEO Clara Min’s resume is impressive. She used to work for Adidas for 12 years, five of which as the senior global sales director for their German headquarters. Prior to that, she collected many life and career experiences in Korea and abroad, while working in products, sales, and strategic planning for about 25 years on three different continents. Among them were Adidas in Korea, Otto in Germany, as well as Stefanel and Gianni Versace in the United States.

During this time, understanding the business methods of the world’s business counterparts and learning how to communicate and cooperate were among the things Clara Min wanted to focus on. In order to establish a vision and strategy, define a roadmap, and successfully lead a heavy lifting project, she needed a strategic and systematic approach, a keen insight into business, as well as a thorough understanding of human relationships.

Business is like a team game. You shouldn’t give too much autonomy to the people who work under you, but at the same time, the leader shouldn’t lead the team arbitrarily, because this could likely lower the team morale.

Because Clara’s job was to communicate and negotiate with the heads of Adidas offices around the world, when she communicated with them confidently and took the lead, one of the biggest challenges was to break the habits and culture she had experienced and internalized as a Korean woman in Korea, one by one.

But even under the weight of words like ? "kind" and ? "passive" which are often used to describe Asian women, and other negative words to describe women in general, it has always been important to Clara to know how to shake these words off or sometimes even actively use them.

[ Figure 2: Clara Min, CEO of Business PowerZone - Looking back, her difficulties as an Asian woman in a European global company and Corona both turned out to be opportunities for her. Source=powerzone.io]?

I noticed that this is not just an individual problem, but is actually a very common challenge that many people face while leading a Startup or an internal/external team at the global headquarters of a large corporation.

When large companies with strong brands and products are active in the global market, there inevitably comes a moment when they must come up with a new business strategy to take a new leap forward in order to stay at the top.

Compared to Startups that have been prepared with great solutions, for Startups that have grown rapidly, gaining the power and know-how to build a solid organizational system at the same rate as their company grows, is a necessary step to continuously succeed.

Whether it’s Startups or large companies, if you have your headquarters in your home country and branch offices in foreign countries, communication between them will become a big challenge due to differences in business environment.

However, if you know how to understand and effectively use these differences, they can become an important factor in creating synergy. As most companies have gone through a process of digitization recently, they have realized that they need to break away from the traditional methods which they have been using in the past and instead create innovation which can not only be accepted by the head but also by the heart. If they want to achieve this, collaborations between tradition and innovation, and creating an ecosystem are essential in order to succeed?

All of these problems were, in fact, problems that Clara Min faced herself during the course of her career. As the senior director leading the franchise and product department of the global headquarters, she spent every waking hour thinking about how to solve this problem.

While she constantly learned more and participated in various workshops about this topic, she came to realize that all these problems were problems between individual people and that she had to find the answer between them.

In order to solve this problem most effectively and approach it in a professional way, Clara completed an international coaching qualification course on the side, while still working at the company. Afterwards, she proceeded to solve the problems in her real-life work environment one by one by applying the methods she had learned, which, she says, was a very exciting process for her. Leaving behind a global conglomerate was an intense experience for her which led to the founding of her own "problem solver" consulting company.

"As a Startup on the global stage, being competitive helps"

When she first decided to start her own company, it wasn’t easy. She carried her resignation letter with her for several months, thinking about when would be the best time to hand it in. She kept on delaying the moment of decision because she didn’t particularly hate the company or have a hard time, and she received the best treatment in the industry. However, her inner beliefs and convictions that she discovered while solving the difficulties she experienced while working, were unstoppable.

Especially while working at global companies for 25 years, she thought a lot about where to position herself. As she worked on large and small projects, this was always something she had to be mindful about. Rather than an individual problem, this is also a problem for Korean Startups and SMEs that have decided to establish branches in Europe.

Nowadays, in the US and Europe, there are many global companies, including Startups, SMEs and large companies. As the term "homogeneous society" might already suggest, it is hard to get the "global" experience in a Korean environment.

However, in the real global world, it is hard to achieve long-term and large-scale success without real competitiveness. It is very important how companies present themselves on the global stage, as we live in an era where good products and ideas aren’t enough anymore to achieve success. For Startups in particular, the key to success lies in how well they are prepared to work structurally and systematically for the future. Overseas divisions of large companies are also investing in Startups to keep up with this trend and are turning their strategies around with the same innovative minds and approaches as Startups.

In such an environment, the difference between branding yourself as a "Korean company" and not branding yourself as a "Korean company" is bigger than one might think. After the phenomenal popularity of K-Pop, many things were suddenly branded "K-…." Even though she is not yet ready to take this step, Clara Min also says that it is not a good idea to "carelessly westernize" oneself. Just the same as in one's personal life, for setting up a company strategy she emphasizes, “From a short-term perspective, we need a roadmap with strategically placed milestones, in the long run, it is important to see the company and the team as an organism, while keeping a clear vision and coming up with an actionable strategy to move forward.”

Business PowerZone was founded in Germany in August 2020 amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, they have been consulting and coaching, leading global companies and leaders such as Microsoft, Stabilo, VF company and Abelton. While building partnerships in the United States and Singapore, they have also been travelling back and forth to Korea, exploring various business directions.

Clara Min’s consulting method focuses on developing her clients’ ability to solve their own problems. It’s a "new generation" method which allows the client companies and teams to develop their own strength based on first-hand experience, rather than just conveying simple expertise and giving solutions as a third party.

Because nowadays we don’t have to meet face-to-face, but can instead use various online tools to meet in a virtual space, she plans on taking on a more active role in connecting Korea and Germany, Asia and Europe. Starting a business during the pandemic made it possible for her to freely make use of this virtual environment. As an Asian, the difficulties with a European global company as well as Covid-19, in the end all turned out to be opportunities for her.

Author: Eunseo Yi (123 FACTORY)

Notice: This article has been edited and adapted from [European Startup wave] of?<BizHankook>.