For anyone with even a remote interest in the inner workings of Hyundai Motor Co. at its Seoul headquarters, Frank Ahrens’ recently published book, Seoul Man, is truly an essential read.
Ahrens, 53, spent three years as the highest-ranking non-Korean executive at Hyundai global headquarters, serving as director and then vice president of global public relations until December 2013. His book isn’t a nasty “tell-all” whistleblower piece, and he is still subject to a five-year nondisclosure agreement. But he says he wrote the book without seeking anyone’s approval or granting pre-publication review.
It’s a culturally enriching piece with some insightful stories behind some of Hyundai’s best and worst news so far this decade. It’s also a deeply personal account of Ahrens’ own midlife crisis, which he aligns with Hyundai’s midlife crisis as a Korean industrial powerhouse.
Flashback to W.Va.
And that’s where we do a quick rewind to about 30 years ago, when I first met Ahrens at a small newspaper in Charleston, W.Va., where we both started our careers as journalists and moved in the same social circles. He was a sharp intellectual and a bit of an awkward personality but seemed like he had a great future in journalism. He spent his next 18 years as a reporter at The Washington Post.
But never, ever, in my wildest dreams could I have imagined Frank Ahrens as a global PR/media guy working for a company like Hyundai without even speaking the native language. So naturally, years later when I was online editor here at Automotive News, I was shocked when this middle-class West Virginia native, with a degree from West Virginia University, landed on our doorstep as our top global contact at Hyundai.
Honestly, given Hyundai’s reputation for churning through executives, I didn’t give Ahrens much of a chance at success.
“They’re going to eat him alive,” I thought to myself.
His book richly illustrates his many personal and professional struggles during that time, but in the end, he won a promotion and earned the respect of most of his peers and bosses.
Ahrens’ core theme focuses on Hyundai’s midlife crisis, reaching the point of respectability but relentlessly seeking to emerge as one of the world’s quality automakers.
“Our goal is to become the most-loved car company and trusted lifetime partner of our owners,” Hyundai Vice Chairman Chung Eui-sun said at the Detroit auto show in January 2011.
The book asserts that Hyundai has started to hit that goal, particularly with the luxury Genesis brand and several successful Hyundai model launches. Ahrens is a huge fan of Chung Eui-sun, who hired and promoted him. The vice chairman is the son of longtime Hyundai Chairman Chung Mong-koo.
“I hope very soon the world motoring media will get to know him, because they will be impressed,” Ahrens wrote in the book’s epilogue.
Warts and challenges
We also get a good look at Hyundai’s warts and challenges, particularly its struggle with its sedan-heavy lineup and the EPA mileage scandal from 2012, which he said was “embarrassing and potentially disastrous for our brand.”
“In my three-plus years at Hyundai … I never witnessed anyone cheating or being ordered to cheat or doing it on their own,” Ahrens recalled from the time. “But at this moment none of this mattered. All that mattered was that it looked like we fudged the numbers.”
Perhaps the best news nugget is Ahrens’ prediction for Hyundai to build a second U.S. plant, probably near its existing plant in Montgomery, Ala.
“Hyundai promised a fun little SUV to compete with the Nissan’s funky Juke, and hinted at a Genesis luxury SUV to compete directly with Audi and Mercedes SUVs,” he wrote. “But these will likely be at least a couple years out.” Those plans, since Ahrens wrote the book, remain on track.
The Winterkorn episode
