Ian Kahng

Ian got his offer to McKinsey in 2019, as one of three people in the state that year to get an offer in the full-time undergraduate recruiting cycle. Ian has helped many candidates from non-Ivy League schools receive internship, post-undergrad full-time, and post-graduate school/experienced hire offers. Before McKinsey, Ian spent two years as a business innovation researcher in the office of Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School, delivering weekly market disruption research to Dr. Christensen and authoring a paper on disruptive innovation in the energy and automotive sectors that was used in HBS lectures and publications. That was where he learned how structured thinking actually works, several years before he had to perform it in a case interview. After McKinsey, Ian was a Financial Performance Manager at Teamshares, a firm that buys small businesses from retiring owners and transitions them into employee ownership. He managed P&L and profitability across 80+ portfolio companies spanning manufacturing, retail, construction, automotive, and software, and sourced, diligenced, and onboarded the incoming CEOs at five acquired companies, training first-time operators on running a business, financial management, and KPI tracking through the handoff. That operating experience means Ian can show candidates not just how to get the offer, but what the consulting toolkit is actually worth once you leave, which is usually the question underneath the question. Ian is also a trained executive coach, holding an Executive Certificate in Leadership Coaching from Georgetown University, an ICF Level 2 accredited program and one of the most selective coaching programs in the country. He was admitted on his first application and was the youngest person in his cohort. Most interview coaching is tactics. Georgetown trained Ian in how people actually change: adult development, leadership presence, and listening for what a person is avoiding rather than what they are saying. In practice, the PEI and fit work goes deeper than script polishing, and candidates who freeze up or shrink in interviews get help with the actual cause. Ian also scored a perfect superscore on the ACT, and has tutored ACT prep since 2012, helping dozens of students increase their scores by as much as 8 points and get into their dream schools. Ian also offers one-on-one executive coaching for CEOs, founders, and senior leaders. At Teamshares, Ian coached the CEOs of small businesses the firm acquired, many stepping into the role for the first time after a retiring owner handed over the company. Through Georgetown's leadership coaching program, he coached executives as practicum clients under supervision, with sessions observed and evaluated against ICF competencies. Alongside that, Ian has spent his career working directly with senior leaders: Fortune 500 executives at McKinsey, senior partners and portfolio managers at Goldman Sachs, and PepsiCo's corporate strategy team through Happiness Squad. That means he can hold both halves of the conversation. Ian can talk through the numbers and the operating decision on its merits, and work on what is actually making the decision hard, which is usually not the spreadsheet. He works with first-time CEOs, founders scaling past their comfort zone, and senior leaders navigating a transition or a stretch role. Ian's consulting recruiting curriculum covers the following main areas: Case interview prep: - Explanation of scoring/case rubric - Initial structuring and hypothesis-led problem solving - Math/quant structuring and problem solving - Mental math - Exhibit analysis - Brainstorming - Summarization/takeaways PEI/Fit Prep: - Explanation of scoring/fit rubric - Planning and structuring stories - Delivery and impact - Secret sauce Ian's ACT prep curriculum covers the following areas: - General test-taking strategies - Pacing and timing - English rules and tips - Math rules and tips - Reading rules and tips - Science rules and tips - Live practice testing