Genesis BBQ Group Chairman Yoon Hong-geun delivers a lecture on "Turning Crisis into Opportunity: An Unrelenting Challenge Toward the World" at the 43rd HDI CEO Summer Forum held at Tops Ten Hotel in Gangneung on Thursday. [Genesis BBQ Group]
Genesis BBQ Group Chairman Yoon Hong-geun delivers a lecture on "Turning Crisis into Opportunity: An Unrelenting Challenge Toward the World" at the 43rd HDI CEO Summer Forum held at Tops Ten Hotel in Gangneung on Thursday. [Genesis BBQ Group]

Genesis BBQ Group Chairman Yoon Hong-geun said the company will "never settle for the status quo, but keep challenging global markets and grow into a global brand that showcases the competitiveness of K-food to the world."

Yoon made the remarks Thursday at the 43rd HDI CEO Summer Forum, hosted by the Human Development Institute at Tops Ten Hotel in Gangneung. Speaking on the theme "Turning Crisis into Opportunity: An Unrelenting Challenge Toward the World," he said crises are not obstacles that stop a company but signals that demand new choices.

He framed BBQ's 31-year history not as a record of achievements but as a series of choices made at moments of crisis. He said the company's competitive edge today was forged by choosing cooperation and innovation over complacency during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, outbreaks of avian influenza and rapid shifts in the dining market.

In 2005, BBQ introduced its Golden Olive Chicken, incorporating olive oil into its frying process as part of a product innovation drive. The company also built an education and quality-management system centered on its Chicken University, sustaining innovation across its products and operations.

"Making a company big and making a company that lasts are two different things," Yoon said, stressing the importance of sustainable competitiveness. For BBQ, that competitiveness has translated into global expansion — through localization strategies, the brand has grown to more than 800 stores across 57 countries, spanning North America, Latin America, Southeast Asia and Central Asia.

"Choosing a path no one has taken means accepting uncertainty and the risk of failure," Yoon said. "But if you only follow roads others have already built, you can never become the master of a new market. BBQ's 31 years have been a time of challenge — choosing a new path at every crisis and forging that path ourselves."

He added that as AI and digital technology advance rapidly, companies must look beyond the technology itself, clearly define the value they deliver to customers and the reason they exist, then innovate continuously on that foundation.

The HDI CEO Forum was held under the theme "The Next Frontier in the Age of Superintelligence — Finding Essential Competitiveness in an Era of Technological Excess." About 130 chief executives from major companies and institutions attended, including HDI Chairman Kim Jong-gap, and exchanged views on new growth strategies and future competitiveness amid a rapidly changing business environment.


spa@heraldcorp.com