Kook Jin Moon
December 7, 2006
The following is excerpted froin the speech Kook-jin nim is giving to members during his ongoing tour of 720 churches in Korea.
My brothers and sisters, God desires for us to become his children. As our True Parents explain we do this in two stages, by becoming engrafted into the lineage of True Parents through the blessing, and by inheriting the essence of God's true love.
In this spirit, I have come here to Korea to serve our True Parents and all of you as the chairman of the Tongil Foundation. When I arrived, I toured the businesses in our group and found a very difficult situation. For forty years our Tongil Group lost money. The situation was bad and not getting better, but with True Parents' blessing, I was able to turn the business group around and make a profit in 2005. Our business group continues to improve this year. The second half of this year will be more challenging because we suffered $55 million in damages through the flood at Yong Pyong Resort. Nonetheless, I am confident that we will be able to overcome this setback and build an even better resort there.
With the improvement of our business, the Foundation has contributed money for the Kintex rallies, for other rallies held in the cities of Korea, and for the palace entrance celebrations.
We also built a new church in Maier.
So how did we go from losing money to making money? First, we practiced the five rules of management and we introduced new management tools for our managers to follow: Theory of Constraint, Six Sigma, Net Present Value and KPI (Key Performance Indicators). We invested in new IT infrastructure; we brought in a groupware system for the Foundation and its businesses. We installed a group-level management information system. We hired over two dozen certified public accountants, attorneys, and other professionals from the best firms in Korea. Then, we interviewed all the middle management of all our companies, and promoted those who were qualified to higher positions. People who were not qualified were asked to move on. We then sold and disposed of non-performing non-strategic assets.
The goal for our Tongil Business Group is very simple. It is to make money for the Unification Movement, to increase the market value of the Foundation's companies, and to generate cash flow for the Foundation's activities...
In 1963 when True Father started the Foundation, he gave it three primary missions. First to actualize a Unification Nation; second to aid in the reunification of North and South Korea; third, to restore all material things back to God. If these are goals that we want to pursue, then my recommendation is that we become people that a nation's citizens will want to entrust the country to.
To become people that a country can trust, we should first show that we can prudently manage and grow the wealth of our church. By showing the nation that we are capable of managing the wealth of the church, we can gain confidence from the nation's people that we are able to be stewards of the nation. Once we win the trust of the nation, we can work to reunify North and South Korea through diplomacy and communication. By serving our church and our nation we can bring the people of Korea to respect, love, and follow the teachings of our Parents and in doing so we can restore all material things back to God.
I would like all of you to know that what I have accomplished here in Korea is not my doing, but all the credit goes to our True Parents. They, made all the difficult decisions that enabled our group to improve. As the CEO of the Tongil Foundation, all that I do will be for the benefit of our Parents and our church. In my position, I want all of you to know that the Foundation will be managed in accordance with True Parents' intent and according to the practice of living for the sake of the greater good. I will do my best to listen to and honor those who faithfully represent our Parents' words.
My commitment to you is to be a leader that can represent all our members. I have come hem to serve and have received no compensation for my work.
Nonetheless, I have been rewarded by the love and affection that you all have shown me, and by the inspirational work of many of our brothers and sisters who sacrificed material comforts to teach True Parents words and to minister to all of you. I thank all of you for the support that you have given me in my work and for loving and following our True Parents all of these years. I know that because of your commitment you suffered and were persecuted. but now we can see before us the fruits of our work. The Tongil Group is profitable and will continue to become more successful.
May God bless you and your families!
Thank you.