The Lee way

After a hard day at the office, Richard Lee unwinds in his own special way... at the PlayStation. The Canadian Korean tried learning to play the piano many times, but gave up. Was he hitting the wrong keys in life? Hardly. A top international lawyer, he is today in the Dubai property business.

Heat, dust, hope and history all coalesce in Downtown Dubai. Silvery steel towers compete with hundreds of cranes to patchwork the sky. The lynchpin of this development is the world's tallest building, the Burj Dubai: the perfect centre for a city built on sheer chutzpah. You cannot but agree with Richard Lee when he says that this is Dubai's most famous and ubiquitous product: real estate.

The 39-year-old vice-president of Sungwon Corporation in the Middle East has discovered that operating in the world's hottest property market comes with its fair share of risks and rewards. He admires the city's can-do spirit and notes that the real estate industry occupies a special place in Dubai's economy.

"Apartments are the single largest product manufactured in Dubai – it's not cars or steel, but real estate that leads the way," he says.

Lee's job has him up at 4 every morning. As Sungwon's head office in South Korea is five hours ahead of Dubai, he is on the phone to Seoul from the moment he wakes up, followed by a workout and run on the beach with his wife – all before breakfast, rounded off by a morning staff meeting at the office.

Lunch is usually taken at his desk while catching up on the news and evenings are divided between his wife Seran ("in-house chairman") and his PlayStation.

The self-discipline comes from his earlier stint as a highly successful lawyer. Lee, a South Korean-born Canadian citizen, was a leading international lawyer in Asia and a founding partner of one of the largest law firms in South Korea. He specialised in construction, corporate finance, international transactions, intellectual property, foreign direct investment, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, asset-backed securitisation and non-performing loan disposition.

But his moment of blazing glory came when as an international litigator when he sued the US government on behalf of the survivors of the Korean Airlines' Guam crash and recovered the highest damage settlement in South Korean history.

A self-described "mediocre" golfer and, according to his wife, the worst flute player in history, Lee is redeemed by his culinary skills. For now he is excited and enthused about helping to build the world's fastest growing city.

"From Dubai I have learned there are always bigger companies, greater ideas and greater people," he says. "Dubai is the single-greatest platform to experience the vastness and wonder of the world. You have the best of people, ideas and political leadership here."

I

If I could, I would definitely keep all the promises I make to my wife – from coming home at a certain time to calling her during the day. I have to make a conscious effort to remind myself to do so. It drives her nuts when I say, 'I'll call you later' and I don't. It's easy to take things for granted. I'd like to change that.

A habit that I deplore is eating just before bedtime. I gained weight after moving to Dubai because of all the good food here and dropping into bed soon after a sumptuous dinner.

I am proudest about my talent at PlayStation and my speed at work.

I can't wait when it comes to tackling paperwork. I multitask all the time and if there is something I need to do I cannot sleep until it's finished.

I have taken 25 piano lessons and quit 25 times. For such a big guy, I can be quite lazy. I picked the smallest and lightest instrument that can fit in my bag. And thus I became a flutist. I would have chosen the piccolo at school, but someone beat me to it. I have been playing the flute since primary school.

As a boss I am hands-on. Whatever I ask my staff to do, I can do as well as they can. I don't delegate. I am also a very impatient person. If it takes me five minutes to do a task that would take someone else half an hour to do, I'll do it myself.

In the Korean language we hardly ever use the word 'I'. There's a respect for elders and respect for commitments. A sense of 'we'.

ME

ME AND GROWING UP IN THE AMERICAS:

I was born in Seoul, South Korea. When I was 6, we went to Paraguay because of my parents' import-export business. I lived in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. The overwhelming memory is of soccer! My parents involved me in the family business early on. At 6, I was able to pick up Spanish in a few months and I would translate documents for their business.

This skill in quickly learning new languages has helped me in my career. I learned Spanish, Portuguese, picked up French and English in Canada then became fluent in Korean when I moved back to South Korea. [In Canada we spoke in English at home, except when my parents yelled at me. For that, the language of choice was Korean.]

Despite the fact that my parents' business had a significant Korean element – we were exporting and importing to South Korea – I was totally engulfed in the local culture. All my friends were from the local culture.

However, I was pretty much shielded from the difficulties that many immigrants suffer.

When I turned 16, I returned to South Korea [for a short period] as part of a special government programme to re-invite all the children of expatriate Koreans to revive the culture and heritage. It was then that I developed an interest in Korea. In my childhood I had no desire or need for Korean culture as my life revolved around the places we were in.

As a student I was a blend of extremes: an extremely good scholar and yet one of the biggest troublemakers – breaking the school building's windows with a soccer ball was the least of my offences. I kept my parents on their toes.

When I was 11, my parents moved to Canada. One of the main reasons they took us there was that they wanted [their children] to go to North American universities eventually. They wanted us to learn the language and culture early on, because assimilation later might be difficult. After doing Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) courses for six months, I won the regional public speaking contests, becoming a local sensation of sorts in the process. [I still speak English with a Spanish accent.]

ME AND STARTING OUT:

I went to university in Toronto. After law school in Canada, I went to New York to do my bar exam. Law school was a means to an end, not an end in itself. My parents wanted me to go to medical school, but I wanted to use my law degree to achieve other things – like what I am doing in my present job.

It's very easy to be complacent, to be the big fish in a small pond. But I'd prefer to be a small fish in a big pond, because there are more opportunities for growth.

I took off from Canada without getting to say goodbye to anyone. I was probably the only one in my graduating class who decided to go to New York to do the bar rather than become a Canadian lawyer. But because I wanted to go to Asia I figured a New York bar degree would be more marketable.

Straight after this, I went to South Korea in 1991, planning to stay there for two years then move to Hong Kong or Singapore to become an expert in Asian finance law.

After two years in South Korea, I just liked it too much: the girls were beautiful and the partying was plentiful. I ended up staying there. When I arrived in South Korea I was in a privileged category: Korean businesses wanted native English speakers to return to South Korea to help them launch overseas.

In Korean, we call it jung – the kinship you feel for your home country, your friends and your [fellow countrymen]. That was something missing in my childhood, having travelled all over the world. Going back to the place I was from and feeling this kinship again was the driving factor that made me stay in Korea. Back then [in the early 1990s], there was a lot someone like me could contribute.

That was a period when professional expats began returning to South Korea to work in different strategic sectors. At that stage, South Korea had achieved economic progress. Those were exciting times.

ME AND PRACTISING LAW:

I set up a law firm with some other partners, Deryook International Law Firm. We developed it into an international practice of 60 lawyers in a span of a few years. The 1997 [Asian financial] crisis proved to be a blessing in disguise for law firms as it created a new category of legal practice. As an international lawyer specialising in intellectual property, I represented most of the world's leading luxury brands in South Korea: Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Burberry, Chanel etc. I helped many Korean conglomerates export their products and services as well as many multinationals coming to South Korea.

As a lawyer, one of my greatest achievements was representing the survivors of Korean Airlines' Guam crash and recovering the highest damage settlement in Korean history.

It was slightly different from my usual cases and was a case that no one else in Korea could have handled, although there was a dramatic need for a local law firm to represent the interests of the survivors. Otherwise, these victims would have been ignored, forgotten or spent their lives pushing the system and their damages would not have been recovered.

On a rainy August day in 1997, a Korean Air passenger jet crashed and burned in a hilly area of Guam as it approached to land on the Pacific Ocean island. Thirty people survived the crash and 228 people died. Our case was that the people in the control tower were negligent in their duties. There was a lot of human error. The airport... had the right equipment, [but] was not operating it. Although I am limited by confidentiality agreements, these are the broad outlines of the case.

We took the initiative of partnering an American aviation firm and sued the biggest 'guy' we could sue – the US government. The case was heard in the Federal Court in Los Angeles. It went on for three years. We were able to win $30 million for our clients, the largest-ever settlement in Korean history.

The three years of representing survivors of a tragic crash was very draining. We had to babysit the clients from beginning to end. I would get calls in the middle of the night and I had to act as not just a lawyer, but also as a counsellor. It took a lot out of me.

After that case, I took a year's leave from the law firm to work in a securities firm, because I didn't want to deal with law for the time being. In investment banking, I specialised in cross-border mergers and acquisitions. My legal background helped me package deals for our clients.

Last year, I helped some Korean companies launch in the Middle East. After helping Sungwon launch here, I was invited to join them. Even at the law firm, I was always involved in marketing and new business development. After helping Sungwon open its office in Shanghai, my next target was to [help it] open an office in Dubai. So I had always intended to come here.

MYSELF

What is your mandate at Sungwon? What are the challenges of being a player in Dubai's booming construction industry?

My mandate was to establish a full- fledged construction company as soon as possible, by becoming localised in whichever areas necessary to compete with established companies, to expand from development into contracting for third parties and to expand the market beyond Dubai.

On the development side, project financing in Dubai still has a lot of room to grow. In other developed markets, there are standardised procedures whereby banks and financial institutions look at the feasibility of the project and the financing takes into account the entire project – including land acquisition. In Dubai on the other hand, financial institutions only finance the construction cost. So we had to overcome the differences in project financing models.

Recently we built an air-conditioned glass-panelled observation deck at our site at Business Bay so that Sungwon's investors and home buyers get a first-hand update on the construction of their Santevill apartments on a regular basis. No developer in Dubai is doing this.

In Culture Village, beside the new Business Bay crossing, is an Arabic-themed master development launched by Dubai Properties: this is Santeview, which is being launched at Cityscape. We bought four plots and amalgamated them to build a twin-tower project. The office tower in this project will provide 40 per cent of all office space in the whole master development.

We are told we missed the [exciting] days of some five years ago, when it was enough to announce a project, make a brochure and it would be sold out overnight. However, we believe that if a project is good, it will find a receptive market.

Having come into the field later, we have to do things better and differently. At every step we improve – from the showroom, to the way we present and sell our products.

How have you handled the transition from a legal position to the property development business?

I come from a legal background where each lawyer is an entity in himself; he is personally accountable for dispensing his professional responsibilities. So it is paramount that any professional promise of deadlines and delivery is adhered to – there is no excuse for delays or extensions.

Moving to a corporate set-up, this [change in priorities] has been one of my biggest difficulties. The strength of a company is organisation and team effort, not an individual achieving on [his] own. My background is of individual effort, which is a huge contrast to the idea of a corporate.

When people can't keep up with my expectations and do not agree with my pace and standards, I get very frustrated.

Me, cooking and innovation

I am a weekend cook and also cook my way out of trouble at home. Cooking for me is a pleasure. I share cooking duties with my wife. It's also my greatest form of relaxation.

When I cook I can organise my thoughts. When I cook I do not follow any structure, but just open the refrigerator and make new permutations and combinations with whatever comes to hand.

Pasta is a great dish that way as you can combine it with so many different kinds of sauces and you will never get the same result.

That is how I like to work too, using whatever resources available.

Me and Seran

I met my wife Seran about four and a half years ago in South Korea – after a good 10 years of being single, with parents and relatives pushing me to get married. In Korea, eligible singletons are subject to this: arranged marriages, forced meetings... and threats of being disowned.

I met Seran on a blind date, set up by mutual friends. Seran didn't give me the time of the day, which was a challenge.

She is an extremely likeable person with the right credentials – she worked as a professional music therapist, as she was trained in opera. When we met, she was treating mentally [challenged] children.

We joke that the secret of our marital bliss is harmony. [Not in the musical sense, that is.] Being married has brought me a sense of discipline and responsibility, otherwise I'd be travelling all the time. Marriage has been a stabilising factor.

Because I grew up in Canada, I picked up golf when I was 15. Although in Dubai, you would have to give me a really big incentive to get me on to a golf course. I am also an awful skier. Despite growing up [in Canada] surrounded by mountains, I've never really practised it much.