Coupang hosts Oregon Governor Kate Brown and her delegation to discuss the future of commerce
On October 17, Oregon Governor Kate Brown led a delegation of the state’s public and private sector leaders to meet with Coupang executives and discuss the future of commerce. The meeting, which was a part of Oregon’s first trade mission to Asia since 2019, was held at Coupang’s Seolleung Office in Seoul.
As Oregon’s fourth largest export market, Korea is one of the state’s key trade partners, with over $1.6 billion in total exports to the country in 2021. Oregon also imports over $2 billion in goods from Korea each year, making the country its second largest source of imports. Agriculture in particular has been a historically important industry for trade relations—for example, in 2012, Oregon became the first and only state authorized to export fresh blueberries into South Korea. In the meeting, Coupang and the Oregon delegation discussed ways to deepen these relationships further.
The event began with a brief introduction to Coupang from HL Rogers, the company’s General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer. Rogers described how Coupang has not only broken the tradeoffs between price, selection, and speed for customers, but also broken tradeoffs for society, including for employees, small businesses, and the environment.
HL Rogers, Coupang’s General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer
“We have built our logistics network completely differently from anyone else in the world,” said Rogers. “We do our logistics end-to-end, and that enables us to do things that would be too expensive for other companies.” He noted, for example, that Coupang’s investments in infrastructure and technology have helped drastically reduce work intensity for employees and cut accident rates to well below the industry average, support small businesses in Korea to grow significantly over the last two years even as those not on Coupang saw revenues decrease, and create the same carbon impact as planting 8 million trees through measures such as decentralized delivery, boxless delivery, and reusable Fresh bags.
Ryan Brown, Representative Director of Coupang Fulfillment Services and Head of EHS
Rogers’ introduction was followed by a presentation from Ryan Brown, the Representative Director of Coupang Fulfillment Services and the head of environment, health, and safety (EHS) at Coupang, who dove deeper into the innovations that enabled the company to break tradeoffs for both customers and society. Brown began with a short video introducing Coupang’s artificial intelligence (AI), which coordinates the company’s logistics operations every step of the way, down to where which item should be placed on which truck for optimal delivery.
Burks also delved into how Coupang specifically helps small businesses in the U.S., handling everything from customs clearance, inventory management, and last-mile delivery on their behalf through Rocket Jikgu. This U.S. small business partnership model enabled American SMEs such as KY Global, Sports Research, and Oregon Berry to grow revenue significantly, even during the pandemic. Coupang’s win-win model with small businesses drew particular interest from the Oregon delegation, who expressed their desire to explore such opportunities to support the state’s SMEs.
“We were honored to have Governor Kate Brown and her delegation at Coupang, which gave us the opportunity to learn from each other and explore new ways to support customers, small businesses, workers, and the environment,” said a Coupang representative. “We aim to build the future of commerce, and this process must include all stakeholders involved to be successful. We will continue to strengthen relationships and explore opportunities to create the best possible experience for customers, small businesses, and workers around the world.”