The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Innopolis Foundation have created a new 16-week hands-on training program to cultivate professional managers who can drive the listing and growth of firms in the Daedeok Special Zone. The move reflects the view that outstanding technology needs solid management capabilities to create value in the market.
 [코리안투데이] Launch ceremony for the Innopolis L.E.A.D. program © 장형임 기자 |
The Ministry of Science and ICT (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon) and the Innopolis Foundation (Chairman Chung Hee-kwon) announced on the 3rd that they held a launch ceremony for the ‘2026 Innopolis Scale-up Expert L.E.A.D. (Innopolis L.E.A.D.)’ program at the main auditorium of the Daedeok Techbiz Center, establishing and operating the 16-week course.
The program name ‘L.E.A.D.’ stands for Listing, Expert C-Level, Advancement, and Deep-tech Innovation. Its goal is to nurture professional managers who can lead the growth and leap forward of companies within the R&D Special Zone. For its inaugural class, it selected 26 trainees, including executives of firms with strong potential to contribute to the development of the Daedeok Special Zone, technology commercialization experts, and officials from government-funded research institutes.
The R&D Special Zone is a regional innovation hub that promotes the commercialization of research outcomes and technology start-ups, and it has recently produced a string of KOSDAQ listings through the technology special listing track. Because KOSDAQ-listed companies see sharp increases in sales and employment after going public, positively affecting the regional economy, supporting the listing of outstanding technology firms is regarded as a key task for regional growth.
However, local companies have often struggled during the listing preparation stage due to a lack of management expertise. With relevant specialists concentrated in the greater Seoul area, special-zone firms have also faced limits in securing and utilizing the workforce they need. This program was designed to fill that gap.
The training is run in cooperation with the Center for Technology and Management Innovation at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). It addresses core capabilities needed for growth, such as corporate growth strategy, investment attraction, technology commercialization, enhancing corporate value, and exit strategies. In addition to practical lectures from experts at the Korea Exchange, securities firms, and the accounting and legal fields, the course combines case analysis and discussion using real company examples with one-on-one mentoring, so that trainees acquire practical skills they can apply immediately in the field.
Kim Sung-soo, head of the R&D Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Science and ICT, said, ‘The first Innopolis L.E.A.D. program is a starting point for cultivating professional management talent that will lead the continued growth and advancement of deep-tech firms in the Daedeok Special Zone,’ adding, ‘For outstanding technology to create value in the market, it must be backed not only by technology development but also by management capabilities such as corporate growth strategy, investment attraction and listing.’
He went on to say, ‘Through this program, we will build a foundation for nurturing professional management talent in the Daedeok Special Zone, and based on the training results, we will expand it to other R&D special zones to actively support the growth and scale-up of regional deep-tech firms.’
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