Cho Hyun-min, the president of Hanjin, a leading logistics and transportation company in South Korea, has initiated ‘on-site management’ activities in the Southeast Asian market. During her visit, she assessed the support status for major global clients while exploring new business opportunities. Cho personally met with clients operating local sales offices and factories to discuss challenges in their logistics operations, while also inspecting the operational status of client logistics at distribution centers.
From February 16 to 22, Cho visited three key Southeast Asian countries—Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand—over a seven-day period to inspect logistics hubs and conduct relay meetings with strategic partners. Approximately ten senior executives, including CEO Noh Sam-suk, accompanied her on this trip.
The visit focused on understanding the logistics landscape of ASEAN, centered around the newly established Singapore subsidiary, and strengthening local partnerships. Hanjin has expressed its intention to expand its logistics network in Southeast Asia using the Singapore entity, which was established in August of last year, as a strategic base.
During her itinerary in Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand, the executives sequentially visited local subsidiaries to encourage employees and review business strategies. They emphasized proactive measures for supply chain diversification centered on Southeast Asia, as well as opportunities to expand import and export logistics.
Additionally, meetings were held with key partner companies operating local business bases. In Singapore, they visited DHL’s Asia-Pacific Innovation Center to observe the latest logistics trends and met with DHL’s Asia-Pacific leadership.
In Indonesia and Thailand, they met with aviation and forwarding partners to strengthen mid- to long-term cooperative relationships. With long-standing logistics partners in Southeast Asia, they discussed cooperation plans to prepare for growing reverse logistics and exports in the region while specifying collaboration agendas.
Hanjin plans to build a reverse logistics network for K-products across Southeast Asia while strengthening various intermediary import and export logistics, using Singapore as Asia’s logistics hub.
A Hanjin official stated, “Southeast Asia serves as both a raw material supply and production base, representing a prime target for domestic manufacturers due to its 700 million consumer population, high acceptance of K-culture, and over 5% annual economic growth rate.” They added, “Hanjin will accelerate the construction of logistics infrastructure and networks in Southeast Asia to respond to domestic companies’ reverse logistics and supply chain diversification needs.“
Meanwhile, in 2007, Cho Hyun-min joined Korean Air, where she was responsible for advertising. She later served as the CEO of Hanjin Travel and the CEO of the Kal Hotel Network before stepping down from all positions due to the so-called “water cup abuse” incident.
A year later, she returned to management as the Chief Marketing Officer of Hanjin Kal and Vice President of Jeongseok Corporation, before moving to her current position at Hanjin.
