CJ CheilJedang opens internal venture development space Inno Play

South Korea's food and bio giant CJ CheilJedang Corp. on Sunday said it opened Inno Play, an office space for commercializing innovative ideas and developing in-house ventures and organizational innovation.

Housed in a four-story building in southern Seoul covering 968 square meters, the space was named Inno Play to convey the meaning of "a space where innovation is in play 365 days a year."

Inno Play comprises an office zone, or an open workspace; community lounge, where domestic and foreign startups can hold an exchange or event where startups introduce their products and services to investors; and a "kitchen lab" for new product R&D and filming of content.

In addition to finding new growth engines, the company through Inno Play will speed up its adoption of an innovative organizational culture in inducing changes in the method of work instead of just simply creating another workspace.

"Inno Play strives to boost a horizontal culture in which challenging and fresh ideas from executives and employees lead to actual business and the organization can act swiftly like a startup," a CJ CheilJedang source said.

Five in-house projects selected through the company's in-house food venture program Inno 100 have moved into Inno Play, as well as Inno Lab, the internal venture business team, and managers from the New Frontier Team of The Growth Transformation Division, which supervises investment in domestic and foreign startups and in-house ventures. The division is led by Lee Sun-ho, the business leader of CJ CheilJedang and eldest son of CJ Group Chairman Lee Jae-hyun.

Newly discovered in-house venture teams and others selected through the R Project, an internal venture of the company's bio division, will also work at Inno Play.

Write to Kyeong-je Han at hankyung@hankyung.com