Sean Kim is the Founder and CEO of TMG Search in Seoul, Korea. He leads the Firm’s TMT (Technology-Media-Telecom), Industrial, Consumer and Private Equity markets. Sean has over 25 years of experience in management consulting and executive search industries covering such functions as corporate strategy, capability assessment, market entry strategy, organizational redesign, new business opportunity assessment, performance metrics development, business process re-engineering and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system implementation.

 

Prior to founding TMG Search, he worked for Korn Ferry for 9 years as Country Managing Director and Senior Client Partner in Korea taking charge of TMT and Industrial markets as the youngest Office Managing Director amongst its 86 offices worldwide while serving on the Global Promotion Committee. Sean has set the record at Korn Ferry for the fastest-track of promotion from Client Partner to Senior Client Partner and then to Country Managing Director all within 4.5 years upon his joining, which is deemed the fastest promotion ever in the history of the firm.

 

Earlier, he was the CEO of Metro Seoul Holdings, the Korean affiliate of Metro, the world’s largest free daily newspaper.

 

Sean worked for Accenture (formerly known as Andersen Consulting), SK Group Chairman’s Office as part of the In-House Consulting (IHC) Team and Bain & Company in his earlier career whereby he acted as a business advisor to the top management of Korean conglomerates conducting new business opportunity assessment, organizational redesign, Key Performance Indicator (KPI) development, turn-around strategy formulation and implementation plans.

 

He earned an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, with triple-majors in finance, marketing and strategic management. He received a bachelor’s degree in business administration, Summa Cum Laude (first in his graduating class), Alpha Sigma Nu (international honor society of Jesuit colleges) from Sogang University with early graduation honors. He has also completed a number of executive management programs from Seoul National University, Harvard Business School, Institute of Global Management (IGM) and the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI).

 

Sean won the ”2005 Herald Business CEO Management Award” for ethical management and successful brand positioning among free newspaper dailies; he also co-authored the bestseller, The Road to the Top MBA in 1998. In 2009, he supervised the compilation of the Korean version of The Trusted Advisor.

 

He is a certified Global Professional in Human Resources (GPHR) by HRCI – SHRM.

 

Fluent in Korean and English, Sean lived in the U.S. and Brazil for over a decade in early days of his life.