Sam Lee, Founder & CEO

Sam Lee, Founder & CEO, InnoCSR Co., Ltd.

Undergraduate School/ Major:
Korea University/ Business Administration

Graduate school/ Degree/ Year:
China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)/ MBA / 2005 – 2007

Responsibilities: Overall management of the company, different projects, business development

CEIBS provides an extensive business network for me. Especially, as a foreigner, running a business in China, CEIBS has been my home ground advantage. Being a graduate of CEIBS simply guarantees a high-level encounter with most of business contacts in China.

The school also supports different projects via our ECCLAR (Euro-China Center of Leadership and Responsibility), different forums and conferences, faculty research and advising, and current student's project engagement and their enthusiasm.

Running a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)/ Sustainability consultancy gives you an extra benefit compared to others. As a result of my work, not only arethe corporate clients helped, but the society also gets helped and improved. Seeing this is truly motivating and developing the win-win strategy between private and public sector is an awarding work.

CSR/ Sustainability is still trapped in a perception that it's a pure philanthropy. Breaking people's perception, which means creating something out of nothing without prior examples, is a hard work. Also, our field is currently challenged with practicality issues. Hence, it is a very hard step to take to show tangible results to corporate clients. A company's doubts about the work is the thing I enjoy least about my work.

I started looking at CSR while I was working for UNICEF as a private sector fundraiser. I saw a big gap between the private and public sectors and thought I could play the bridging role.

I wanted to study CSR/ Sustainability with a bigger view. Plus, in order to understand China from the perspective of a foreigner, there's no better way than CEIBS MBA.

I worked as a Client Partner for a strategy consultancy called Trilogy. Mainly, my work was in the automotive industry with half consulting work and half business development work.

There's no set rule. They need to have a very open mind with general and special skills in different industry and social sectors. I think it takes double the efforts than usual strategy consulting. Also, when coming to China, which has lots of opportunity, a learning mind should be set to be part of a new culture and new business surroundings.

I think one needs to really know what he/she wants to get out of the program. Scoring at the top or getting on the dean's list is not the only important part of your MBA program. For me the top priority was knowledge gathering on CSR/ Sustainability and networking. Only when you know your top priority can you achieve what you want out of your MBA program. Going in to an MBA program without a purpose will not help and could actually result in one's waste of time.

Again, do know your purpose when going to an MBA program. Also, do utilize the school's resources fully.

Consider school's strength compared with the applicant's career or life. When this matches, synergy will result in a greater experience.