The strength of a company is not captured by numbers alone.
Revenue, profit, assets and market capitalization reflect performance in a given moment. But how a company chooses to engage with the world — the philosophy it lives by — emerges outside those figures.
This is why building schools and nurturing people carries a different weight. It is not merely an act of corporate social responsibility. It is a statement about how a company understands the future — and where it chooses to invest time.
That is what made Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn’s visit to Bugil Academy last week more than ceremonial.
Marking the 50th anniversary of Bugil Academy, Kim wrote in the guestbook: “Let us build the next 100 years of Bugil, filled with passion for learning and growth.”
In his remarks, he urged students to “stand on the shoulders of those who came before and grow into leaders who will shape the future.” More than 1,300 students, faculty and alumni attended the event. The message resonates because of how Bugil began.
The school was founded in 1976 by Hanwha’s late founder, Kim Chong-hee, who donated scholarships without limit under the belief that “education is the fundamental cornerstone of a nation’s century-long future.” Even today, the statement feels unusually weighty.
Building a business to generate wealth is expected of an entrepreneur. Choosing to redirect that wealth into education — into people — is a different kind of decision. A factory and a school may both be built structures, but their purposes diverge. A factory produces output. A school produces time. One delivers for today. The other prepares what comes next.
It is in this distinction that Kim Seung-youn’s brand of entrepreneurship becomes clearer. His presence at the anniversary was not simply about honoring a founder’s legacy. It was about reaffirming that legacy as a living corporate philosophy. Kim served as chairman of the Bugil Foundation for more than three decades, from 1981 to 2014, helping shape Bugil High School into a leading private institution.
Many companies speak of legacy. Few institutionalize it.
Words fade. Systems endure. Schools remain. Alumni remain. The values and capabilities cultivated through education diffuse into society over time. What Kim has sustained is not just a school, but the institutionalization of a philosophy.
Entrepreneurship is often described through expansion — risk-taking, decisive investment, scaling into new industries. These are real attributes. But they are not sufficient.
Companies that endure ultimately depend on their ability to recognize, develop and retain people. Without that, scale becomes superficial. Growth expands outward but lacks depth. This is what gives Kim’s visit its broader significance.
His emphasis on learning, growth and future leadership signals how Hanwha defines continuity. Business portfolios change. At different points, chemicals, defense, energy or finance take center stage. But beneath those shifts lies a constant: people.
Technology can be acquired. Talent cannot be manufactured overnight. Yet this is precisely where many Korean companies struggle. They speak of talent, but operate on immediacy.
Hiring is framed as long-term investment, but in practice favors immediate productivity. Training is emphasized, but often among the first costs to be cut. The result is a system adept at using people, but less patient in developing them.
Against this backdrop, Bugil’s 50 years carry a different message. Education is slow. But it is the most reliable form of investment.
Sustaining a school over five decades is not an outcome that appears in quarterly earnings. It reflects a longer horizon — one that values possibility over efficiency, continuity over immediacy. That kind of time horizon is rare in corporate decision-making.
In that sense, Kim’s entrepreneurship is less about expansion than accumulation.
Acquisitions and global market growth matter. But building a foundation of people — steadily, deliberately — matters more. Commemorating 50 years of Bugil while speaking of the next 100 is a reminder that a company’s future cannot be separated from the pace at which its people grow.
The anniversary, then, is not only about Bugil. It poses a broader question to corporate Korea: What does your company leave behind? Numbers on a balance sheet, or a foundation others can stand on? Companies that generate profit may succeed. Companies that cultivate people endure.
Education, scholarships, training — these are not peripheral activities. They define the level at which a company operates, not just how it is perceived.
Fifty years of Bugil is a record of time invested in people. One hundred years of Hanwha remains unfinished. What will determine that future is unlikely to be different. Not how quickly people are used, but how long they are developed. That is where the true measure of a company is drawn.
*The author is a columnist of AJP.
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