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About Proper Mediation Inc.

Proper is more. Mediation is everything.

Proper Mediation Inc. is a Seoul-based advisory firm. We bring fifty years of shipyard practice to yards, navies and governments that need their capacity to turn into ships delivered on time.

The Okpo shipyard on Geoje Island seen from the air: docks, gantry cranes and ships under construction

Our mission

Mediate through proper engagement. That is where the best is brought forth.

A knowledge-and-experience platform of seasoned professionals, thirty years and more in the work, sharing what they know where it is needed.

Solve problems from the rootWe hold to one principle above the others: find the cause, not the symptom.
Design for the whole and the futureEvery project is shaped for the whole organization and for the years after we leave.
Release the potential withinPeak performance comes from the people and organizations already there, not from outside.
Make new behavior lastWe build the structure that carries new thinking and behavior into lasting habit and culture.

Photo: IikaJzuchiN, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped)

People

Practitioners, not observers

Suh Wan-Chul

Principal Advisor

He walked into a shipyard for the first time in January 1975 and out of one for the last time in May 2020. In March 1985 a new CEO handed him the publications of the U.S. National Shipbuilding Research Program and told him to study them. He spent the next thirty-five years turning what they described into something a shipyard could do.

45
years on shipyard floors
6
countries
1994
Harvard case
  1. 1971–1975Seoul National University
    BSc, Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering
  2. 1975–1979Engineer, Korea Shipbuilding and Engineering
    Design and production engineering; project manager for prototype ships
  3. 1979–1987Daewoo Shipbuilding, Planning
    Senior engineer, then general manager of planning and control; studied the NSRP publications from 1985
  4. 1988–1995Director, Vision 90s turnaround programme, Okpo
    From near-collapse in 1987 to the world's leading VLCC builder in 1993
  5. 1995–1996Executive Managing Director, Corporate Strategic Planning, Daewoo
  6. 1996–1999CEO, Daewoo-Mangalia Heavy Industries, Romania
    Restructured Europe's largest shipyard to international standards
  7. 2000–2012Adviser to Korean and European yards; university teaching
    Gyeongsang, Chungnam and Changwon National Universities; TACT System at Baltija, Lithuania, 2005–2006
  8. 2013–2017Principal Advisor, Proper Mediation Inc. · Boustead Naval Shipyard
    Seven naval projects delivered on time for the Royal Malaysian Navy
  9. 2019–2020Shin Yang Shipyard, Sarawak
    Shipyard transformation
  10. 2022–PresentIndustrial Advisory Panel, UniKL MIMET
    Bachelor of Engineering Technology in naval architecture and shipbuilding
  11. 2026The Heartbeat of the Shipyard
    Blue Whale Books&Publishing

Hyun Soo Suh

Chief Executive Officer

He trained as an architect in Delft and spent four years at KAIST planning urban systems for national projects. His work then moved from the architecture of space to the architecture of people and organizations: for more than a decade he has designed and led courses on human potential and behavioral change, the side of a transformation that decides whether new behavior lasts. He leads Proper Mediation Inc. and publishes Blue Whale Books&Publishing, beginning with The Heartbeat of the Shipyard.

2009
MSc Architecture, TU Delft
4
years at KAIST
2015
leading Proper Mediation
  1. 2007Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
    BSc in Architecture
  2. 2009Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
    MSc in Architecture; registered architect in the Netherlands
  3. 2009–2013Research Scientist, KAIST, Daejeon
    Urban systems for national projects: the master plan for Sejong Science City and urban regeneration for Daejeon
  4. 2015–PresentChief Executive Officer, Proper Mediation Inc.
    Shipyard consultancy; corporate coaching for organizational transformation
  5. 2015–2018BNS Transformation Program, Boustead Naval Shipyard, Lumut
    Project-management advice with Suh Wan-Chul, for the Royal Malaysian Navy refit programme
  6. 2017–2018International conference papers
    On perception and the understanding of space: Tomar, Portugal (2017) and Miami (2018)
  7. 2026Publisher, Blue Whale Books&Publishing
    The Heartbeat of the Shipyard

The network

Seasoned professionals, thirty years and more in the work

Engagements draw on a network of practitioners who have spent their careers in the industries we serve. They recognize a yard's problems because they have lived them.

Fields covered
Shipbuilding and offshoreShipyard managementOnshore plantChemical plantInfrastructureHuman resource development

Work with us.

Proper Mediation Inc., Seoul, Republic of Korea. Blue Whale Books&Publishing is our publishing imprint.

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