Alex Jenson  00:08

You’re listening to Koreabizcast with the KBLA I’m your host Alex Jensen and it’s Wednesday, February 23. I’m actually speaking not from my usual studio but from the offices of Intralink Korea, in Seoul finance center. It’s on the fourth floor, which is different from where I’ve previously done recordings of SFC but still very nice surroundings. And Jonathan Cleave, Managing Director of Intralink Korea, who I connected with through LinkedIn, and indirectly through this podcast, is sitting alongside me, it’s been a real pleasure to chat with you off air  and it just took a few conversations for us to think let’s continue this on Koreabizcast. So it’s a pleasure.

Jonathan Cleave  00:53

It’s a pleasure. Thanks very much, Alex, for offering to have this interview.

Alex Jenson  00:57

And if anyone else wants to connect with us the same way that Jonathan has, through LinkedIn, just search KBLA and there we are, and feel free to message us on just about anything you feel would be appropriate. But, Jonathan, one of the first things I wanted to ask you about was your Korea story. You’re one of the few individuals I meet who’s either from Britain or Australia, US or elsewhere, who’s been in Korea longer than I have quite a bit longer, I think. So. Remind me and tell everybody when you first arrived and what actually brought you here in the first place?

Jonathan Cleave  01:32

Yeah. Thanks, Alex. So I came to Korea 18 years ago. And first I studied economics in the UK. After my degree, I worked in London for a couple of years at a headhunting company. But I wanted to go and travel around. And I also wanted to do a master’s I knew I wanted to do a master’s in economics. But I thought, first of all, I’ll do two or three years traveling around the world, I did a CELTA course, to teach English. I came to Korea. I only intended to spend one year in Korea and maybe one year somewhere else and then go back to London and settle down, do study, study my masters. And when I came to Korea, I just fell in love with the energy with the people. I mean, it was it was a pretty, pretty unusual move. Certainly from the UK, I think, you know, in North America, people were a lot more comfortable with Korea around about your turn of the century, I think in people leaving London, didn’t really know why I chosen to go and spend some time in Korea and certainly didn’t know why I’d started to learn the language etc. But I came, I started to learn the language. And then after three years, funnily enough, I applied to two masters courses, one at Sussex, one at Seoul National University. And on the same morning, I got acceptance letters for both. And so I had a fork in the road, and I decided to take the Seoul National University master’s program and from there, built a life here.

Alex Jenson  02:56

And certainly, it seems to have been a successful life from the outside. You’ve ended up in the seat as Managing Director of Intralink , which we’ll talk a bit more about that the kind of services that you offer. Now, what about the journey, especially after that fork in the road prepared you for what you’re doing now?

Jonathan Cleave  03:18

So, so I did my master’s. So actually, I, unlike a lot of people at the time, so people was just starting to get interested in Korea and studying in Korea and studying about Korea, but a lot of people will go to as they still do today go to the GSIS schools in Seoul National University or Yonsei. But actually, I went to the main school. So a lot of my almost all my courses were in Korean. So it took me three and a half years to get out of that Master’s course is a very, very tough program. I was one of the very few first foreigners to do that. After the financial crisis 2010 and 11 actually a lot more foreigners started to come in and study in the main school, but at the time 2007 this was a very unusual move. So for the first three, three and a half years in that Master’s course. I was tough. I mean my life was really in a very Korean environment. I enjoyed it. I grew a lot, but it was very, very difficult. After that, I came out and I got a scholarship the Korean government scholarship to do the doctorate. I then worked at a Korean software company so I spent a lot of my time really in the kind of Korean business world and academic world. And then in 2013 I joined Intralink.

Alex Jenson  04:25

I just want to take slight sideways move here and talk about the language side. I sometimes I’m interested from a professional point of view, I’m personally very interested as well because I feel like I want to speak better Korean but from a professional standpoint, it does occur to me that perhaps there’s less need to have the fluency that you required at that time to do a Master’s course in Korean. Would you agree with that?

Jonathan Cleave  04:51

Yes, yes or no? I mean, you know, we do add injury. What do we do most of our days as having meetings with various Korean companies, partners, customers, etc. Some of those will be in English, I would say probably about 30 to 40% of the meetings that we have tend to be in English, especially if we have a client on a call, especially as COVID has now hit and you know, kind of people get more used to zoom calls and teams meetings, it’s much easier for us to get a client straight into a call and, you know, liaise with the customer directly. But once you leave that kind of top level decision maker, it really you really need to have the language to be able to liaise with the engineers to be able to liaise with the sales team, the procurement team. So, you know, is it essential? Actually, I think it is essentially almost more important as time goes by more and more Koreans, I think, are expecting that, you know, they can have their meetings in Korean if they need to.

Alex Jenson  05:45

It’s an interesting perspective, because on the other hand, you got more and more younger Koreans, who are now working level Koreans, that they’re no longer students who can speak decent English. And in my experience, there are offices and workplaces that are set up with Korean speakers, bilingual speakers, and English language speakers. And if it’s a type of workplace where everybody has their strengths and can synergize that can work very well. But I guess, then the answer is, it depends what you’re doing and who you’re working with.

Jonathan Cleave  06:17

Yeah, it does. So we I mean, in Intralink, our Seoul office, we have 20 people, about 21 people, two thirds of those are Korean. And so therefore, the other 1/3 are non Koreans, usually, you know, from America, from Canada, etc. But all of whom have done at least a master’s usually in Korean, through the Korean language, so they feel comfortable in the language. It is. I mean, I still think it’s very important to be able to be able to have those meetings in Korean because I think, you know, those first few meetings might well be in English with the client, etc. But very often once, especially if you are really going to be able to liaise properly. Editor of process with with a Korean company, you need to be able to have meetings again and again and again, and they don’t want to have meetings, they start bringing in different teams, etc. You need to be able to do that in Korean if need be.

Alex Jenson  07:11

Well, it says in the blurb on LinkedIn about Intralink that East Asia is a tough region to crack. Language is one of those reasons why would be a tough region to crack clearly for that for some of the factors that you’ve brought up there. And I mean, you’ve sold me anyway. Because I think when you’re coming to Korea, the relationships you can build when you speak the local language, if you’re planning to be here, long term friendships, romantic relationships, whatever it may be, is obviously going to be enhanced if you’re all speaking the same language. But let’s talk a little bit about Intralinks place in the market. It says it makes commercial success in Asia fast, easy and cost effective. Would you say that demand for that kind of thing, if you like is much, much higher in 2022 than you could ever have dreamed of. When you first stepped into that Master’s course, in Korean?

Jonathan Cleave  08:09

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even when I started Intralink Korea. So we, I mean, I think it’s probably worth just mentioning what interlink does, because, you know, we’ve got three main business units, but the one you are talking about is what we call Asia inbound. So helping European North American Israeli British technology companies to understand the markets in East Asia, identify opportunities, and ultimately to license or to sell their solutions into the market. 2013 When I joined, we were a team of three in Seoul. I mean, we had a team of 20, or whatever, in Tokyo, and probably similar size in Shanghai, but our Seoul office was very small. And Korea was often a kind of upsell, you know, that we would say to a client in let’s say, an Israeli software company, you know, use us to explore the market in Japan. And we’ll you know, we’ll throw in Korea, we’ll have a look at Korea, we’ll see if there’s anything interesting in Korea, and how things have changed. I mean, Korea now is a market in its own right. It is a booming market. It’s a very attractive market for a lot of companies. And we’re benefiting from that.

Alex Jenson  09:09

So going deeper into some of the services, what are some perhaps case studies from this year or recent months that you could throw out as for a tangible example?

Jonathan Cleave  09:19

So, yeah, so we work as I said, with technology companies now, most of our clients tend to be Series B Series C funded technology companies, maybe they spun out of MIT or Imperial College London, they get some seed funding some angel investment or whatever, they start to build a business, some series A and around about Series B investors will start to ask them well, what are you doing in Japan? And what are you doing in China and what are you doing in Korea? And  Intralink fulfills that need? So we are a way for a client to be able to switch on a sales results very quickly in these markets. They don’t have to worry about employment law or getting the right people etc. We’re very transparent with clearly on the client side. Our remit and our ethos is very much to represent the client and not to consider concern ourselves too much with our local contacts. But to really be on the client side, and to try and get transparency on markets, which are very difficult to get transparency out of if you’re sitting in London or Berlin or San Francisco. So there’s a market intelligence aspect to what we do. So definitely we are understanding what the market is understanding, what the competition is doing, understanding what for example, the, let’s say Samsung, or LG are developing internally. But then ultimately, we are paid. And we live and die by the fact that we need to be able to deliver results. And so that is selling in licensing our clients software, or hardware or technology solutions into Korean companies. And so you ask for some examples. I mean, I think we have an event later this week, we’ll talk a bit more about that. But in the hydrogen space that we do a lot of work in the hydrogen space. Recently, we have helped our clients a British soft fuel cell company to collaborate with Doosan. This is all public knowledge. So we’ve a series of collaboration deals and licensing deals with with Doosan. To be able to put their fuel cell inside a larger product that Doosan will make to be able to generate power in the Korean market. So that’s just one example. But there are plenty of others of the way that we work with our clients.

Alex Jenson  11:22

Is there a stereotype that exists when you’re trying to negotiate with those Korean companies or a Korean business? I feel like it’s something that people look for sometimes like they say, oh, when you’re doing business in China, XYZ happens in Japan, it’s very different, because for this reason, and is there something about Korea that people need to be aware of? Or has it diversified so much already, that we can’t really speak of it? And it’d be more about differences between large and smaller companies, for example?

Jonathan Cleave  11:50

Yeah, I mean, there’s definitely a difference between the how larger companies or smaller companies would operate, or their cultural differences. Of course there are, can we overplay them? I think we can I mean, people are people ultimately, and people, you know, bottom line speaks. And I think one of the things perhaps, I would suggest, is Korea you know, changes very quickly, even up to a few years ago, the kind of not invented here syndrome was very strong here, I think, and generally trying to capture as much value and develop solutions internally as possible, was really the way the Korea as Japan did beforehand, developed. I think what we’re certainly seeing over the last 5,6, or 7 years is a realization that if Korea tries to develop everything internally, and if, for example, Samsung, or LG, or Doosan or Hyosung, or whoever it is, tries to develop all of their products internally and keep as much of that value internally, they’re probably going to lose miss the boat, because the Chinese will come up at the moment. I mean, the Chinese are ferociously competitive in a lot of the areas, Korea is really strong in. So I think there’s a recognition increasing recognition that actually, Korea, the Korean conglomerate should focus on what they’re good at, and licensing or buy in areas of the of the product of the overall product that they don’t necessarily need to put so much effort into. So there’s definitely a lot more, I think, potential in Korea, as as we move on, as China starts to really become that main major competitor.

Alex Jenson  13:10

Yeah, that is certainly interesting to note. And I am also curious how some of the geopolitical developments influence your thinking on that. Because right now, there’s huge uncertainty around Ukraine and Russia. And we’ve got China already a period of uncertainty behind us, but perhaps greater uncertainty in the future. Does that actually come into the average business person’s mindset as well, when you’re when you’re picking a strategy for East Asia, for example, for a company?

Jonathan Cleave  13:41

Yes, it does. I mean, one of the things I think we’re in the forefront of a lot of our clients minds is IP, you know, how do we protect IP? And I think, for example, you know, if you look, if you look at East Asia, you’d probably be most comfortable in Japan, going into the Japanese market and feeling fairly safe with it with your IP, and perhaps less so in Korea. And certainly, I think there’s a lot of people have concerns in for that in China. The larger kind of geopolitical point, does it Yeah, I mean, our China Business, I think, is taking a little bit of a hit, not not huge, but is definitely taking a little bit of a hit over the last couple of years, as companies are starting to see that there is a bifurcation of the technology world and a lot of companies are now starting to maybe just treat China with a bit more caution than I think they would have done three or four years ago. So I think we’re definitely seeing that consequence.

Alex Jenson  14:32

One of the other cliches if you like, is that Korea is so tech minded, so open to technology that it’s, as you said, just now fast moving. There are though, when you’re living here, some some gaps, like for example, the WiFi. It’s not always as wonderful as it’s cracked up to be better than my experience in rural England over Christmas, much, much better. And there’s way more taxis connected to the apps, for example, in different parts of the country. It’s not all city focus. So, you know, clearly technology has gone far into the country and an elderly people are using smartphones very successfully and that sort of thing. But do you feel that there’s actually a lot more potential still in in some of the industries that you’re working with in Korea?

Jonathan Cleave  15:15

Yeah, I mean, there’s, there’s huge potential. So hydrogen we talked a little bit about, and we’ve been very successful in that area. But I mean, just last night, there was the presidential debate, they talked a little bit about the kind of digitalization of Korean, the Korean economy and you know, having that kind of really deepen into all aspects of the Korean economy. With that comes, you know, need for applications and software to go into those into that digitalization digitalized environment. And so I think there’s, there’s a lot of opportunity, because still, it’s a fairly crass kind of division. But still, I think the West does software better than Korea, Korea has traditionally been a hardware country. And there’s a lot of clients, we I can think of one at the moment, we have a French client in the energy optimization space for a factory energy optimization solution. They are actually we just had our first sale here over Christmas. And they are starting to see a lot of demand as factories, start to bring in all the sensors, etc, and digitize all the processes, clearly, then they need to have applications to be able to really optimize their energy, for example, in that case, so I think there’s a lot of opportunity with with the coming digitalization of Korea. And just to maybe to say, I mean, the broad trend is, you know, the greening of the world economy and the digitalization of the economy. And so in those two areas, when the hydrogen economy, the fuel cell project that I spoke about, of course, is, to an extent is greening our energy solutions. And digitalization, we work in this space. So we work from west to east, of course, that’s very high growth at the moment. But we also work in technology, digitalization, and you know, net zero, etc, this kind of area, which is seeing a lot of investment.

Alex Jenson  16:53

Really interesting talking about this stuff with you. And I suspect we’re going to be reconnecting. But we’ve got to mention what you’ve already referred to a couple of times, that is this hydrogen related event. It’s a happy coincidence. Like to say we planned it, but it actually emerged during our conversations, hey, and we’re both doing things related to this. My involvement will be actually hosting a panel discussion, which will be playing out later this week, to tie in with an event that’s being held by the Danish embassy. And you have been working on that. So before, you know, I don’t want to steal my own thunder with the discussion I’m going to be having but can you just perhaps before we do that, have a pre pre discussion with you, with you telling us how you got involved in that as another example of the word that Intralink and that you do?

Jonathan Cleave  17:41

Yeah, so um, so I mentioned, we have three business units, and one of them is coming into helping companies come into this market. One of the other two is what we would call government services. And a part of that is working, we do a lot of work with embassies and commercial services and innovation centers, etc. To do market intelligence on the local market. And so we have worked actually with a lot of various organizations. But in this, in this case, the Innovation Center, the Denmark Innovation Center, to write a report on the hydrogen economy here in Korea, to give Denmark is very strong in hydrogen. They’re particularly I think, interested in electrolysis, they’re very strong electronic system, also very strong in offshore wind. So there’s a real natural strength that Denmark could potentially offer for Korea. And there’s a lot of companies that are interested in in the Korean market for that. And so we’ve written a report on the hydrogen market in Korea. And my colleague, Dilshod Akbarov will be, I think, speaking with you on another podcast, and then at the event on Friday, to talk about that report, talk about the the market the opportunities for Danish companies, and then to have a roundtable about, you know, how to how to achieve success in the market.

Alex Jenson  18:51

I’m looking forward also to then taking that conversation a little bit deeper. Certainly Korea has been banging the hydrogen drum for years. For example, in the area of vehicles, when, when most of the world’s we’re talking about electric vehicles, perhaps we can finish our conversation here with a little bit of advice that you might offer the same version of you, that might be coming of age at university age. Now, we talked a little bit about the language before, but is there something else that you think people considering Korea as options to live in? Not necessarily of student age, even, that you think they should know about that they wouldn’t necessarily learn while being based abroad?

Jonathan Cleave  19:30

I mean, first of all, Korea is a pretty wonderful country to live in. I genuinely think that I mean, when I first came 2000 and right at the end of 2003, it was a fairly brutal city. So I mean, it was functional. Everything was just basically built with the intention of getting exports out there out of the country and you know, earning hard, hard currency. And so it was a pretty, pretty unattractive city. I’ve got to be honest and in the, in the in the two decades almost that I’ve lived here It’s become a very, very pretty city. I mean, you know, of course part of it, so not so much. But so it’s a lovely place to live. The people are lovely. They work hard. They are sincere. And so I mean, I, you know, I don’t know exactly to whom I’m speaking, but if it’s just someone thinking, Well, maybe you know, I’m fair. I’m a digital nomad. And I could go and live and, and work anywhere. I spoke to somebody just this morning who was doing that exact same thing. Same thing in Thailand. Well, I would say actually, Korea is a wonderful place to come and to live, and the WiFi is not as bad as I think you make. Generally we find it’s, I find it’s fairly good. And it’s a route, it’s got a really good energy. I just think I still think to this day, Korea has got a really good clean energy. I mean, it’s just a good place to live.

Alex Jenson  20:43

Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to be too hard on the WiFi services. I’ve just had a few issues in some of the homes that I’ve lived in over the years that they’ve not been able to solve for whatever reason. And you hear sometimes people complaining of throttling, I think it’s not really a technological issue. It’s, it’s a company issue, depending on what service you’re with, and so on. But Jonathan Cleave, if that’s the worst thing we can say about live in Korea must be pretty good. And it’s been great to catch up with you. I know that our leisure lies have crossed over as well here at the gym at the Seoul Finance Center, which is I still think it’s a bit of a hidden secret, you know, you see, yeah, won’t give you the name, you have to find out for yourself by coming to Seoul finance center. Or they can perhaps come on board as a sponsor, and we’ll give them loads of publicity. But Jonathan Cleave again, real pleasure to be with you. Looking forward to this event later this week. And looking forward to our next excuse to have a conversation on Koreabizcast.

Jonathan Cleave  21:41

Thanks very much, Alex.

Alex Jenson  21:43

And that’s it for today an unexpected turn of events in some ways, but looking forward to the synergy as I just mentioned, but also want to shout out to our email address if you want to get in touch with us there. Really, it can be anything that interests you. Of course, we are seeking partners all the time. Of course we are also seeking people with interesting stories all the time, info@kbla.net but you can also email us if you just have a suggestion you want to offer some feedback about the podcast something that you’d like to be hearing about. And I remind you that KBLA is where to find us on LinkedIn. And otherwise see you again, same time at a time that suits you. In fact, tomorrow