Inside Hana Financial Group's Cheongna headquarters: 'It changes how we work and communicate'

Hana Financial Group to hold opening ceremony for Cheongna headquarters on Friday

About 2,200 employees from 10 affiliates to relocate by year-end

Smart work center allows staff to work freely without fixed desks or wired connections

Open layout designed to break down barriers between employees and departments

Hana Financial Group's Cheongna headquarters [Hana Financial Group]

Hana Financial Group's long-anticipated Cheongna headquarters has finally been unveiled, marking the formal start of what the group is calling its "Cheongna era."

The defining concept of that era is collaboration. By bringing together employees from Hana Financial Group and its affiliates under one roof and removing the partitions that once separated departments, the group aims to foster integration across its workforce. The vision is to harness synergies between employees and affiliates as the engine driving the group through the next 100 years.

Hana Financial Group will hold the official opening ceremony for the Cheongna headquarters on Friday, after which full operations will begin, according to financial industry sources. All employees of Hana Financial Group and some staff from Hana Bank and Hana Financial TI began working there on Sept. 14, and all employees of Hana F&I completed their move on Sept. 21.

Hana Bank and Hana Capital are scheduled to relocate next month, followed by Hana Life Insurance, Hana Securities, Hana Fund Service, Hana Card and Hana Savings Bank in November. In all, about 2,200 employees from 10 affiliates are expected to join the Cheongna headquarters by year-end.

The building was bustling with staff making final preparations for the opening ceremony when visited Wednesday morning. Some areas, including parts of the first-floor lobby, were still being finished, but most employee work spaces were ready.

The Cheongna headquarters rises 15 above-ground floors and extends 7 below ground. From the outside, the building evokes a European museum. One of its most striking features is an exterior ramp running continuously from the first floor all the way to the 15th. Hana Financial Group said the design was intended to embody "a space where the group's employees can collaborate and innovate continuously, and where all stakeholders — customers, shareholders and beyond — are connected as one, realizing a finance for everyone."

The exterior ramp allows visitors to stroll from the ground floor to the 15th floor at a leisurely pace. From the 14th-floor terrace, the Yellow Sea is visible in the distance.

The interior work spaces were designed to maximize natural light. "Since the Cheongna headquarters is itself a work facility, we made sure that natural light reaches even the work spaces connected down to the first basement floor," a Hana Financial Group official said.

The interior, like the exterior, centers on the idea of connection. Internal staircases linking floors 3 through 7 and floors 10 through 14 are designed to encourage spontaneous encounters and active communication among employees. The group said it has also expanded its communication zones to three times the size of those at its former Myeong-dong headquarters.

A view looking down at the interior work space from the central hall on the seventh floor of Hana Financial Group's Cheongna headquarters. [Herald Business]

The work spaces inside the Cheongna headquarters have no partitions dividing departments. Where a senior manager's desk might once have dominated a corner — a familiar sight from Korean dramas and films — there is now little more than a small table for meetings or a cup of tea. The intent to minimize anything that might impede communication among employees is unmistakable.

Another notable feature is the smart work center. Using cloud PCs (virtual desktop infrastructure), instant messaging and softphones, employees can work without being tied to a fixed desk or a wired connection. To make this possible, Hana Financial Group became the first in the financial industry to integrate technology from SK Telecom and Samsung Electronics into its work environment.

"At the smart work center, employees can work more freely and flexibly," a Hana Financial Group official said. "We have created an environment where work can be done from anywhere."

The first basement floor houses amenities for staff, including a convenience store, a café and sports massage services. A gym tucked into one corner had about five employees working out during the visit.

Collaboration is the core value woven throughout the Cheongna headquarters. The aim is to break down barriers between employees and between affiliates as much as possible, generating unexpected synergies. The building itself functions as one vast collaboration platform.

"The Cheongna headquarters is not simply a move to a new building — it is a starting point for reimagining how we work and how we communicate through space," a Hana Financial Group official said. "It will be a place where people from different affiliates and departments meet naturally, share experiences and ideas, and create new value together."

The back-office integration is already complete. Hana Financial Group has built an integrated data center directly across from the Cheongna headquarters, a structure with 16 above-ground floors and 1 below ground.

The integrated data center houses a unified security operations center responsible for all of the group's cybersecurity. It blocks more than 1,000 hacker IP addresses every day to prevent harm to customers and responds directly to hacking attempts targeting overseas affiliates. A central operations room enables real-time monitoring of emergency situations as well as contract activity across all affiliates, including the bank.

"The integrated data center goes beyond stably operating the group's IT infrastructure — it is a core hub for turning future financial innovations such as cloud and AI into reality," a Hana Financial Group official said. "We will continue to strengthen the group's technological capabilities, including through the Hana Financial Convergence Technology Institute, to provide customers with safer and more convenient financial services and to build a digital financial ecosystem that grows together with local communities."

hyuk@heraldcorp.com