How has GEMBA helped to advance your career?

We asked one of the alumni, Kyu Dong Kim who graduated from Global Executive MBA in 2019, how he has benefitted from the program. When he joined the program in 2018, he was a Senior Manager at LG Corporation’s Finance Accounting Team. Soon after graduating, he was in a leadership role at GIIR. Today, Kyu Dong is Vice President of Finance and Risk Management at LG Display.

Your company invested in you to be part of the UW GEMBA program in Seattle for one year. How important was that experience in helping you to continue to grow and advance in your career?

One of the key impacts of the GEMBA program was that it helped me to develop insight to leadership and prepared me to take on more challenging roles. It was an immense opportunity to learn from renowned faculty as well as gain global business experience through engagement with classmates from different ethnicities and cultures.

Through your GEMBA experience, how do you think you have made contributions back to your company?

I was grateful to the company for providing me with excellent development opportunities, so my loyalty to the company became stronger.

After living in the United States for a year, I became much more aware of the U.S. business environment, economy, culture, and history, and that in turn, has strengthened my ability to solve global issues from a broader perspective and facilitate effective communications with overseas subsidiaries.

LG Corporation is well-aware of the positive impact of the GEMBA program and continues to support it to secure talent in our organization.

I am currently with LG Display, a global company with many overseas subsidiaries. In my role as VP of Finance and Risk Management, lessons from the GEMBA classes such as global strategy and organizational leadership are helping me effectively carry out global management.

When you were nominated to spend one year in the U.S. for an MBA degree, why did you choose the UW GEMBA program?

Many US-based MBA programs have strong reputations, but I chose GEMBA at UW Foster as it also provided some unique competitive advantages.

In addition to the rigorous academic learning, I took advantage of the opportunities to form an impactful network with global companies in Seattle, such as Amazon and Microsoft. These structured interactions helped to bring together theory and practice, which significantly benefitted me as a global leader.

The GEMBA program was ideal for me as I was looking for a program with a smaller class size, high level of international representation, and classmates with similar 10-15 years of work experience. I knew that with a smaller class size, I had to be prepared to learn and actively engage in class. The international class representation secured useful connections around the world and the high level of professional experience allowed us to share and solve similar challenges together.

Finally, the GEMBA team is unique. They have an excellent understanding of various cultures, and they were extremely effectively in responding to student needs and helping them to immerse in the program.

With these in mind, I chose the UW Foster GEMBA program without any hesitation and now as an alumnus of the program, I am confident that I made the right choice.