Hyokon's home

Welcome to my homepage. I am an entrepreneur, and, I would like to call myself, a professional innovator. What do I mean by that? I build new businesses myself, and also consult others on innovation. I do these at Innomove, an innovation firm that I started in 2004 in Korea.

Before starting Innomove, I was a manager at Bain & Company. At Bain, I was having a great career. I was lucky to be the key manager for the largest client of Seoul Office for 2.5 years. I was honored to be voted as the first Best Coach of Seoul Office. I learned a lot about how to change and move large companies. But there were some cases that were more important to me, even though others also celebrated. Together with my colleagues, I proposed and designed the first online insurance business models in Korea, when there was hardly any precedent globally. So, when people asked me why I was leaving, my response was "I want to do it more." The traditional business strategy is about running, not creating. It is more analysis than flash of ideas. While I liked strategy, I loved innovation more.

Before Bain, I worked at A.T. Kearney, another consulting firm. In 2000, I worked in Europe on broadband projects twice, once in Poland and the other in Portugal. I was asked by my Swedish partner to move to Sweden to work with him, but the big Internet boom in Korea made me to come back to Korea. On the phone, a friend said to me "it is a revolution now!" Well, when I came back the bubble bursted as you know. I wonder how my life would have been different now if I had stayed in Europe. Another crossroad of my career.

I also worked at CJ, the largest food and media company in Korea, and at STAR-TV in Hong Kong.

I wrote a small book titled "Longtail Strategy for Korean Companies". It has paper-book and ebook editions. And the paper book is sold together with Chris Anderson's The Long Tail, which I also translated into Korean edition with some colleagues of mine. While writing my book, I developed the concept of Mass Niche, which is the new economy of diverse small businesses we are entering after the Mass Production economy dominated by large companies. It has significant implications, including less concentrated wealth, the importance of arts (visual arts, music, etc), and freer and happier work.

I am an MBA from Kellogg School. I liked finance, graduating as the top finance student, and almost joined Enron (another what-if point). Looking back, I think I liked financial innovation, but not the finance industry lifestyle.

I went to Seoul National University, studying Economics. Once I dreamed of becoming an economist, but was discouraged partly to find that my classmates who wanted to become economists (who would become my collagues if I became an economist) were the people I found most boring. (Later on at Kellogg, I found that academics in the US had some cool people.) But I still like economic thinking.

I used to play guitar at a rock band which I formed with my highschool friends, and still listen to guitar-oriented rock music. I also like soft and classical music.

If you want to talk to me, please send an email to hyokon[dot]zhiang[at]innomove[dot]com. Thanks for visiting!