[Asia Exclusive] 'Mr. Dongbanja,' Who Has Served as Civic Activist, Economist, and Minister

Kwon Ki-hong, Chairman of the Win-Win Growth Committee... Who Is He?

Chairman Kwon Ki-hong of the Win-Win Growth Committee is discussing coexistence, cooperation, and resolving polarization between large corporations and small and medium-sized enterprises at the Win-Win Growth Committee in Guro-gu, Seoul. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daeseop] 'Civic activist, economist, educator, politician, former minister...'.

What name would Kwon Ki-hong, Chairman of the Win-Win Growth Committee (age 71), want to be called? When the reporter met Chairman Kwon, he was straightforward and unbound by formalities. Employees cite his unique warmth and humorous simplicity as his charm.

He stood on the university podium as an economist for over 30 years and served as a university president. He helped lay the foundation of an administration as the secretary of the Social, Cultural, and Women’s Subcommittee of the Presidential Transition Committee. As the first Minister of Labor under the late President Roh Moo-hyun’s government, he pushed for the five-day workweek despite strong opposition from the industrial sector at the time. In the 2004 17th general election, he ran as a candidate for the Uri Party (now the Democratic Party of Korea) in Gyeongsan and Cheongdo counties, Gyeongbuk Province.

In 1997, Chairman Kwon established a social welfare foundation (Deobureo Welfare Foundation) in his hometown to help adults with severe disabilities. This was a project he had been preparing since 1986. After returning from studying in Germany and starting to teach students at Yeungnam University, he formed a small group called "Together with Cerebral Palsy Disabled," which was the beginning.

He stated in the foundation’s establishment purpose: "In 1986, I decided to be courageous. Having lived with my own child for over ten years, I tried to apply the civic movement model of German society to our society. As a parent of a child with cerebral palsy, I could not just wait blindly for structural social changes that might never come."

Chairman Kwon said that among adults with severe disabilities, many remain neglected in the blind spots of social interest and care. He mentioned that many parents around us are agonizing with the premonition of the miserable fate awaiting their disabled children after their own passing, watching their disabled children grow up.

Kwon Ki-hong, Chairman of the Win-Win Growth Committee / Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

Chairman Kwon’s appointment as the head of the Win-Win Growth Committee, which serves as a central body for coexistence, cooperation, and resolving polarization between large corporations and small and medium enterprises, may be because our society needed someone with his long-standing concern for social structural issues and experience as an economist and Minister of Labor. Chairman Kwon emphasized, "If win-win growth was once a matter of moral obligation, from now on, it has become the very survival strategy of companies and the national economy."

◆Career

▲Born 1949 in Daegu ▲Kyungbuk High School ▲Seoul National University, Department of German Language and Literature ▲University of Freiburg, Germany, Master’s and Ph.D. in Economics ▲Professor, Department of Economics and Finance, Yeungnam University ▲Chairman, Deobureo Welfare Foundation ▲Minister of Labor (2003?2004) ▲President and Professor of Economics, Dankook University ▲4th and 5th Chairman of the Win-Win Growth Committee (2018?present)

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