Hyokon Zhiang

Entrepreneur and innovation professional

Location: Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea
Industry: Internet

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Hyokon Zhiang's Overview

Current

Founder, CEO at Innomove

Past

Manager at Bain & Company
Associate at A.T. Kearney
Associate at STAR TV

Product planner at CJ Corporation

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Education

Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management
Seoul National University

Connections

357 connections

Websites

Blog

I am an entrepreneur and CEO of Innomove, a small company that I founded. Innomove has two web services, Artpoli and ReadBuild.

I used to be a business consultant, but after some innovation experiences, decided to devote my career to innovation.

In 2000, as a consultant I came up with the business model for Kyobo Auto Insurance, which became the first online insurance in Korea, and among the earliest in the world, together with my colleagues at Bain. Later at Bain, I also advised Kyobo Life Insurance to launch the first online life insurance business unit in Korea. This gave me the opportunity to experience how hard it is to disrupt your current business for uncertain future.

I also recommended introducing advertising business model for a major bookstore, which significantly increased its operating profits.

Specialties

Innovation, small business, entrepreneurship, new business creation, Internet business, social media

Founder, CEO

Innomove

Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry

September 2004 – Present (7 years 5 months)

I started Innomove in 2004, with the goal of innovating innovation. I believed, and still believe, that innovation can be made more productive.

Until the summer of 2007, we have focused on innovation consulting. We gave innovative business ideas to clients. Some of our ideas have been executed. One was P2P e-learning marketplace, and another was advertising business model for a bookstore.

From the fall of 2007, we shifted focus to innovation development, which we call Innomove Lab. We launched Artpoli, a community and marketplace for fine arts, in 2008. We also opened ReadBuild, a book2.0 service, in 2011.

Manager

Bain & Company

Privately Held; 5001-10,000 employees; Management Consulting industry

August 2000 – August 2004 (4 years 1 month)

I designed the business model for the first online auto insuarance in Korea. It has now over 500 million USD in premium revenue and is still growing fast.

I also was the lead project manager for the change management for a life insurance company for over 2 years, which was the biggest ever project for Bain Seoul. We developed an online life insurance business unit, which was the first by a major insurer in Korea, as well as strengthening the existing offline business. In the process, my question of "why is starting a new business that competes with the incumbent so difficult?" led me to find 'Innovator's Dilemma' by Clayton Christensen, which approved much of my real experiences and hypotheses.

I worked on strategic projects in synthetic fiber, IT, and banking as well.

I was voted as the first recipient of the Best Coach Award of Bain Seoul. I left Bain to devote on innovation, which I realized through my experiences is very different from corporate strategy. I learned a lot at Bain and met great people. I think Bain's loyalty economics is the simplest yet most powerful strategy concept.

Associate

A.T. Kearney

Partnership; 1001-5000 employees; Management Consulting industry

1995 – 2000 (5 years)

I joined A.T. Kearney's Seoul Office as the 6th consultant, while it still did not have an office and worked out of a hotel room.

After MBA, I worked on mostly telecom projects. I worked in Portugal and Poland, as well as in Korea. It was a construction period for broadband networks. I actually worked on costing cables, pipes, and (Yes!) digging.

Associate

STAR TV

June 1998 – September 1998 (4 months)

I was a summer associate and worked on satellite TV joint venture projects in Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Korea. Though I was in the TV business, I have never worked with any actor or actress. I only did usual business development stuff, financial and strategic analysis.

I was very impressed with the culture of Star TV, which could be that of News Corp, the parent company. It was no bull shit and fat free. The program scheduling for the entire Asia was done by only 2-3 people.

Product planner

CJ Corporation

1990 – 1995 (5 years)

I started at accounting department, and after my military service, worked at marketing and product strategy.

One noteworthy work in this period was developing Sol-eui-noon (meaning Pine Bud). It was developed as a health drink for new generation. Until then, the health drinks were regarded as 'only for old people'. It became a steady seller with sales over USD 20M, and there has been few if any me-too products so far. This was my first experience in innovation.

Korean
English

Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management

MBA, Business, Finance, Operation

1997 – 1999

I graduated as the top finance student. I was, and am still, very honored to be chosen by the finance factulty who I learned from a lot. I liked derivatives so much that I almost joined Enron. Looking back, what I liked was not finance industry itself, but financial innovation.

Seoul National University

BA, Economics

1986 – 1990

I was far from studying, playing guitar in a heavy-metal rock band formed during high school, Baduk(Go), and billiard. Maybe it's a reason why I found studying fun in my MBA days.

Websites: