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1. Please discuss your previous professional experiences,
your long-term career goals and the role the MBA will play in those plans. Why
are you interested in The Fuqua School of Business and what do you hope your
contribution will be to an MBA environment? (Limit - 4 pages)
My long-term aspiration is to manage a Venture Incubator
company that brings up an enterprise and concurrently supports the fund
investment and management consulting of the Venture Company. It is extremely
difficult for any firm to be recognized in the market in the beginning. In
particular, in the case of a newly born firm, it is inevitable that they fall
behind on the marketing, settling vision, and performing strategy. If we can
find such companies and provide them with the fund and management consulting at
the same time, we will be able to create value worth no less than hundreds of
times greater than the amount of investment. We will be able to recognize some
purpose as an incubator in the sense that we raise a desirable company.
My objective, as mentioned above, stems from working
experience for 3 and a half years as an expert in terms of credits and one year
of working experience as a consultant. In order to become an expert in credit,
especially a loan officer, I entered the KRW 19 billion (approximately USD 16
million) asset-scale of the biggest professional organization for long-term
credit, the Korea Long-Term Credit Bank upon graduating from the university in
1995. I became well aware of the concept on the management of risk on the
assets as well as the management of risk on credits through 6 months of
on-the-job training on the risk management from Assets & Liabilities while
developing the Banks management system. Afterwards, as a loan officer, I was in
charge of around 30 deals of credits for the big and small companies. All I
learned from 18 months of experience was the assessment of the potential value
of the firm simply by its number of financial affairs could commit a
considerable mistake. Among the 16 times of new credit loan cases I had
handled, 2 cases were left delinquent by the time I quitted working at the end
of year 1998. The lesson that I learned at that time was that if I had viewed
the firms in terms of assessment from diverse angles such as vision and
performance strategy of the company, the driving force of management strategy,
and the active organization structure, I would have been able to prevent the
bad loan. The opportunity to change my career into a consultant also came from
this experience.
From the beginning of 1999, I changed my career to a
consultant of the strategic consulting group in a local consulting firm called
the ABL. It was done for the purpose of actually going inside the firm, and
being able to study the vision and strategy as well as broaden the
understanding on the firms. Although 1-year period was relatively short, I was
able to participate in 4 projects including the outsourcing project for SK
Telecom, organization-restructuring project for Kookmin Bank. During that
period of time, I learned to raise the success of our team through bench
marking, method of setting up vision and strategy, method of establishing a
scenario and the assistance of our team. In addition, I realized from the
colleagues, especially those who had achieved the MBA, that their knowledge on
management and consulting skills are far better than mine. From then on, my
desire to study in full scale on management, which is necessary for a
consultant, began to grow rapidly.
A business school is very significant to me for three major
reasons. First, I can learn the managerial knowledge and skill through advanced
course of studies on management and various practical experiences. Secondly, it
provides the chance to mutually interchange with superior men of ability.
Thirdly, the MBA degree can build confidence to the prospective clients upon
performing as the Project Manager and being in possession of the MBA degree
will be much help on the fund forming for venture investments.
The primary reason why I choose Duke is the strong point in
terms of environment. I would rather explore my overseas studies in a typical
American small and medium-sized city than a metropolis such as New York, which is full
of immigrants. Among top 10 business schools, Duke is the only one to my taste
in this perspective.
I would like to spend two years being engrossed in academic
fulfillment in an academic atmosphere in Duke located in the center of ?esearch
Triangle?where the largest number of scholars with doctoral degree may live
throughout the United States.
The second reason is that Duke is located in the vicinity of
Washington D.C in which my wife wants to pursue her goal in museum studies. If
my wife comes to study at George Washington University,
I would choose between Duke University and University of North
Carolina in order to spend the weekend with my
wife. For this reason, I apply for the MBA schools within 4 hours of driving
from Washington D.C.
The third reason is that I evaluate Duke located in the
research triangle park- the so-called ?merica? next Silicon
Valley?provide the best course in the field of entrepreneurship
for new ventures. In particular, the only courses of Duke managing venture and
growth mentored study program with entrepreneurship for venture capitalists
will serve up essential knowledge on the establishment of venture capital
company, which is my long term aspiration. During the period of time in Duke, I
would like to share my business know-how, which is necessary to establish the
venture company, with follow students by participating in the entrepreneurship
and venture capital club.
The most crucial thing that I can contribute to Duke is my
experience in and knowledge on internet business and venture company in Korea.
Korea
is one of top 10 nations in the world in terms of internet business and emerges
as the experimental arena for the venture company, which is expected to belong
to top 5 telecommunication countries by the year 2010. One of the themes that I
want to make research is the detailed report on strategic investment with
reference to the status of and the prospect for investment in 100
representative venture companies out of the main telecommunication nations in
Asia including ROK, Taiwan,
and Singapore.
Given the opportunity, I would like to make a specific study group related to
the theme of research along with professors and fellow students. I hope Duke
will be recognized as one of the most prestigious business schools as far as
Asian venture company is concerned thanks to my research in the long term.
1. Tell us about the most challenging team experience you
have had to date. What role did you play? What factors made it a challenge for
you? How did you and the group address these issues? What did you learn? (Limit
- 2 pages) 2. a) Discuss a personal failure that had an impact on your
professional practices or management style. Why do you consider the situation a
failure? How did you resolve the situation? Did it change your professional
outlook? If so, how? (Limit - 1 page)
During my first year at Asset & Liability Management
Team of Korea Long Term Credit Bank, I went through a significant failure that
made the schedule of my team unnecessarily delayed. It occurred in the middle
stage of my first project, which was to build up the risk management system for
the bank. Within the project, I was responsible for performing benchmarking JP
Morgan? ?AR (Value At Risk)?system. At the case team meeting where I was supposed
to present my work, I had only prepared the results of how VAR system works
without my analysis and interpretative thoughts on the results. Thus, I was not
able to answer important questions raised by my team members with reference to
the results. Since the answers were critical for the progress of their work,
they had to wait for me to formulate my thoughts and have a discussion with
them at our next meeting. At last, with the help of one of the colleagues in my
team, I was able to finish interpretative analysis of the benchmarking three
days later, which eventually brought about an unnecessary delay.
I created this situation because I was not fully ready to be
a pro-active and creative in terms of idea. Being raised in Korea where
responsibilities are categorically assigned by position, I was not fully set to
execute the task without permission of my supervisors when key decisions were
required. Although I was commended as the best worker in military service, I
was nothing but a performer who accomplished tasks in an efficient manner. I
was not trained to plan and accomplish an assignment for myself. Through this
failure, I recognized that ? good worker?in an intellectual organization
requires vigorous self-planning and self-training. In the wake of this failure,
my first priority in any project is placed to accept full responsibility for
the task at hand, self ?plan and accomplish as much as possible, and develop
answers to any contingent questions. I want to change myself from an executor
to a leader. I strongly believe that my early failures in my career have
encouraged me to be a better consultant, manager and leader. Thank you.
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