Jin Han
Managing partner of Globus International
Korea → US → Netherland
Key expectations from a mentor would be:
To provide relevant guidance to mentee
Ensure to understand the issues and jointly reach a solution with the mentee
Provide real experiences, and follow up with relevant actionable items - no theories
Key skills for a mentor would be:
Active listening without judgement or pre-conceived notion
Know where to find answers / guidance, i.e., refer to the right people or resources
Communicate clearly and honestly
Analytical mind
Desire to see others succeed
Mentoring Approach:
Tailored to each mentee, to understand the mentee’s compelling events, and customize the discussions and reach a conclusion with the mentee
Aligned values with the mentee, so that the mentoring sessions are meaningful
Build trusting, safe environment to discuss openly
Leadership roles in: Accenture, Ernst & Yong, Siebel Systems, Textkernel, among others.
Client List: Samsung, Honeywell, American Express, Princess Cruises, NASA, ING, Deutsche Bank among others.
As a mentor: Met with nearly 400 start up’s, and coached closely with more than 50 companies across the globe, in US, Asia and Europe in the past few years.
As an investor: Invested in more than 7 companies and continues to grow the portfolio in a measured and qualitative manner.
As a professor: Taught at an MBA school at a public university and also Bachelor’s program at a private university.
I would like to think that one of the most important aspect of mentoring is to provide relevant guidance to mentee and not just theories or high level ideas. Most of the mentees found value in hearing a real life examples of the situations and the solutions to the problems.
What are you doing today?
Currently, I work with startups and invest in startups. Either through accelerator programs such as ACE, SIRA, or through references, I meet with startups regularly and select startups to mentor depending on the startup needs and the mutual interest.
The areas of mentoring include strategy, direction, organizational structure/issues, scalable models, business models, revenue models, talent acquisition, funding, and B2B sales/marketing.
While my expertise is in the areas of enterprise software and artificial intelligence, the industry I’ve worked with have been rather broad for the moment.
How did you get there?
As I started with the defense of management consulting to executive management, through each role and company, I took away different expertise.
For example, while working in defense in the area of Anti Submarine Warfare, I used my physics background to its fullest in applying the principles and programming to derive the results.
Accenture taught me the value of methodology and project delivery with efficiency and standardization.
Ernst & Young taught me to become an effective leader and manager.
Siebel, I gained confidence in sales and learned to apply sales methodology while managing sales teams.
In Textkernel, I learned about artificial intelligence - what it is and what it is not, along with scalability 101, i.e., what to do and not to do in a growing company to grow.
In working with numerous startups, I got to see what works, and the struggles, and based on the founders and the industry, the ability to foresee the challenges that founders might face, and help avoid potential pitfalls that could cripple the startup.
Why are you doing what you are doing?
I do what I do for three reasons:
To continue to learn and grow
To share my resources - be it time, knowledge, experiences, finances, etc.
To have fun in a meaningful and worthwhile manner
What I do - working with startups - allows me to do all three of the above.
Where are you going? What is your vision?
For now, I am quite happy with what I am doing in working with multiple disciplines. While there are a couple of possibilities, i) working with multiple companies or ii) working with a single company with sharp focus, either option would result in:
Growing the business
Yielding ‘meaningful’ results (whatever ‘meaningful’ might mean)
Testimonials
