People

“Doing research here as a doctoral student is almost like growing your own business, but without as much of the risk. Through research, you can engage and satisfy your own intellectual curiosity, and create knowledge that makes a difference in the world, all with support and resources from your department, from HBS, and from Harvard.”

Byungyeon Kim’s (he/him) first job was with POSCO, a steel-making company in his native South Korea. While the role promised security and advancement, he couldn’t shake the sense that there were bigger questions he’d like to investigate. Why had certain systems been put into place? How could the outcomes be more precisely forecasted? Couldn’t the business practices be more efficiently designed? Despite his increasing intellectual curiosity, he found no outlet to explore the many questions that occurred to him. “I realized what I really wanted was to return to an academic setting,” he explains.

Interested in the ways that value is created through delivering enhanced communications and user experience, Byungyeon researched master’s programs in marketing, ultimately enrolling at Korea University Business School. During his time there, he continued to reflect on his own work experience, with a particular focus on the ways that quantitative data can better support decision-making. Thanks to the recommendation of a faculty advisor, he realized that specializing in quantitative marketing would provide him with a meaningful platform for his research interests. He went on to apply to a number of PhD programs in quant marketing, and selected Harvard Business School in large part because of the outstanding reputation of the Harvard Economics department.

When he arrived at HBS, Byungyeon found it was the perfect place to continue to explore the questions that fascinated him, with the support of outstanding, engaged professors. “Before I came to HBS, I was concerned that the faculty would be too busy to take time to really interact with students, but that is the opposite of what I’ve encountered here,” he says. “Every faculty member is genuinely interested in what’s happening on campus and what graduate students are working on.”

The path that Byungyeon chose has served him well. “Doing research here as a doctoral student is almost like growing your own business, but without as much of the risk. Through research, you can engage and satisfy your own intellectual curiosity, and create knowledge that makes a difference in the world, all with support and resources from your department, from HBS, and from Harvard.”

Research
Harvard’s proximity to top firms that would be possible research sites was one of the primary reasons Byungyeon chose HBS. But he hadn’t realized how important Harvard’s worldwide research centers would be to his work. His second year research project involved a study of sales force compensation that resulted from a partnership with a Turkish pharmaceutical company made possible by an international research site. “Harvard’s multiple research centers around the globe connect faculty and grad students with firms worldwide, and put international data within reach. They are a remarkable resource,” he says. Based on the success of this collaboration, he recently traveled to Turkey to brainstorm ideas for another project.