Korean Entrepreneur Featuring So-Young Kang – The Awaken Group

Q: What is your full name?

So-Young Kang

Q: What schools did you graduate from and can you provide some work experience?

I have an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA dual degree with honors in International Relations and East Asian studies from University of Pennsylvania with a minor in Music Theory.

My experience in leading cultural transformations, coaching, training and maximizing performance of organizations began nearly 15 years ago, starting from my experiences as a change agent at Citibank to my most recent experiences at McKinsey where I was a global expert in designing and implementing value-based performance management systems through cultural transformation and executive coaching.

My international experiences include advising leaders in over fifty client situations across the Americas, Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East as an expert on topics such as performance management, cultural transformation, top team engagement, KPI development, and strategic planning.

Professionally, I started my working career in Japan working for Chiba Convention Bureau, then worked for Citigroup in various roles, and worked for McKinsey & Consulting from the West Coast Office serving High Tech, Media and Telecom clients -was at McKinsey until I founded The Awaken Group.

The Awaken Group. This business started when one of our current business advisors, Dave Gibbons, approached me to start a leadership consulting firm. I was reluctant at first but then, after much prayer and thought, realized that this was very much aligned to who I am and what I enjoy doing most. Company did a soft-launch in mid-2009 and formal launch was in December 2009. We then opened our Singapore office in December, 2010.

Q: What is the concept of your business?

The Awaken Group is a global leadership development consulting firm that focuses on transforming the world through “human, creative, adaptive” leaders. We focus on aligning people to strategy through taking leaders on a transformational journey from assessments to coaching, leadership training, change management, and implementation to unleash the maximum potential of organizations. We use Design Thinking to help our clients develop innovative solutions and create beautiful experiences.

Q: What inspired you to start this business?

A desire to change the world through leaders.

Q: What were some of the deep challenges you faced when launching this business?

In some ways, I feel very blessed that we did not have what I call ‘fundamental’ challenges with the people we were working with. The biggest challenge was that we had no clients and had to start from scratch to decide who we were going to be, what our unique value proposition was and how to get clients. I think these are common start-up challenges for establishing a new business. And my professors at business school were right to say that things always take twice as long as you expect.

Q: What suggestions can you give aspiring entrepreneurs who want to start their own business? Any advice?

Invest a LOT of time upfront defining who you want to be before you even think about how to make money. I believe your core values and vision are more important than your strategy and business model if you want to create a great company. Despite having no income and no clients, my founding partners and I spent 2 months discussing who we wanted to be as a company, what our vision was and what our core values are. This is so critical because it then defines and starts to shape your culture and becomes what makes you unique and differentiated to others. It also helps you then to know who to work with and who not to work with and what clients to serve and what clients you don’t want to serve.

Q: What is the worst part of this business?

Hard question because I have never been so fulfilled in my work as I am right now. I find it a true joy, honor and privilege to be able to influence the lives of many through working with leaders and their organizations. I feel blessed and energized by the work we do. But if I had to choose the worst part, I guess it’s scalability. In our business, it is very challenging to scale because we are in the people business. It takes time to find the right people with the mix of character, skills and experience that fits with our needs.

Q: What is the best part of this business?

The amazing people I have the privilege to serve as clients and to work with as partners, collaborators and employees.

Q: What are some secrets to the success of this business?

I will let you know when we get there. Success is a funny word and it depends on how you define success. I used to define it as some financial target or external recognition. My definition has changed over time and how I define success is much more internal and about how aligned the work we do and the impact we have is to our vision. This, to me, defines success. I think it’s important to be honest about who you are, what you know and what you don’t know. I believe being “successful” in this business and in any business requires great people – people you can trust, you can learn from, teach, growth with. But I don’t think that’s so secret.

Q: What do you want to achieve in this business?

Make a positive impact on the world through developing human, creative and adaptive leaders. I’d love to design beautiful organizations that inspire employees, communities and nations.

Q: Please list any contact info like website, email address, Facebook site, etc.

Company website
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