"Top-Tier for Value"

 

The inception of TMG Search has been rooted in my calling to better serve my clients with executive-level recruitment services in relentless pursuit of unmatched values geared towards customers and not shareholders in times of a conflict of interest.

 

Many headhunters would say that such values are to be measured by a placement rate. And yet, not many would clearly elaborate on what it takes to achieve a high placement rate. The key question is not about what but about how.

 

Bombarding clients with unsorted 20~30+ candidates will create unnecessary burden upon the shoulders of clients in terms of time and cost. Presenting big name candidates taking for granted their achievements on surface would equally lead to a costly consequence. Simply put, one of the ongoing and grave issues prevalent in this industry has been the inability of many career headhunters to assess candidates beyond their resumes.

 

Values to clients would require a search consultant to possess “discerning eyes” in order to evaluate the right fit of executive candidates for each role. This capability would not be earned automatically by merely spending a long time in a search business. A true search consultant must understand a clients’ business model, strategies and operations as if he/she were a CEO of the client’s organization. A true search consultant must understand what is on and beyond job descriptions of Financial officer, Marketing officer, Supply Chain officer and Information officer. Yet, many transactional search consultants tend to place too much emphasis on a sheer human network to a degree whereby they would mistakenly equate industry and functional knowledge with the number of business cards they have collected.

 

TMG Search has been founded in that context.

 

TMG will zero in on values to customers as our reason for being.

We will not pursue volume at the sacrifice of quality.

We will not be misguided by anything superficial or shallow because executive search is not a mere match-making business with some key words on CVs.

We will take pride in possessing a unique blend of professional search experience and deep industry expertise in the very sectors and functions for which we provide our recruitment and advisory services.

 

TMG's mission is to provide unmatched values as a trusted and business-versed advisor helping our clients achieve their end-state image with our talent solution - executive search.

 

 

Bio of Sean Seungjong Kim

 

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 to be 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.