When Terence Leong got off the plane in Taipei, Taiwan, after spending five weeks away participating in MIT Sloan Executive Education’s Advanced Management Program, he walked back into his life—but with a different mindset.
“We have been going through some exciting transformations within our company,” explains Leong, Group CCO for KKCompany, one of Asia’s most innovative media technology companies, which is home to the world’s first audio streaming platform, KKBOX (developed before Spotify); a live entertainment company; a content accelerator; and more. “I knew we were heading into these changes right around the time I left for the program. And I felt like MIT rewired my brain just in time for me to come back and really delve into what needed to be done. Every day I spent on the Cambridge campus was literally preparing me with tools that I use every day now.”
Embracing Executive Education
A longtime music producer, songwriter, and content curator, Leong joined KKCompany in 2016 to found an internal private equity investment firm that was established to accelerate a new generation of independent content creators. His role has evolved, and he now handles general management, content strategy, and the incubation of transformative new businesses, among many other responsibilities. By 2017, he began to tap into his deep-rooted thirst for knowledge and started seeking out executive education opportunities. He completed Stanford University’s LEAD Program, and he also earned his MIT Sloan Executive Certificate in Management and Leadership in 2019. But it was during the Covid pandemic that he decided to go in a new direction with his executive education journey. In December of last year, as Taiwan dealt with a full Covid lockdown, he applied for the Advanced Management Program as a way to be proactive and plan for the future.
“For me, it wasn’t about chasing certificates. I was all about figuring out what I was going to learn next,” Leong observes. “Taiwan’s a very engineering kind of place, and I have grown to love the engineering culture. I was always curious about MIT’s spin on management because I knew it would be a different kind of thinking. Many schools focus on traditional management theory, but I knew MIT’s Advanced Management Program would show me how to look at management through a technical lens.”
A Systematic Approach
After receiving support from KKCompany’s CEO to spend five weeks during May and June to complete the program, Leong immersed himself in the sessions and exercises, often taking advantage of the 12-hour time difference between Boston and Taipei to interact with his colleagues at home after class ended for the day. He was able to keep track of the transformations that were beginning at KKCompany and recognize how each day’s teachings could be applied to what the organization was going through. He also found that he could commiserate and learn directly from his classmates, many of whom were also going through major transformations in their own professional lives.
“Sometimes, we don’t know what it is we need to learn. Back in April, I couldn’t have told you what I needed. But for some reason, everything taught in the program was what I needed to know,” Leong says. “It gave me a systematic approach to transformation and allowed me to make connections between my creative side and my engineering or technical side. I learned how to look at the issues we were facing through three lenses: strategic, political, and cultural.”
"I felt like MIT rewired my brain just in time for me to come back and really delve into what needed to be done. Every day I spent on the Cambridge campus was literally preparing me with tools that I use every day now."
He continues, “I also learned how to look at our entire organization as a system and not just as an organizational chart. I could see it as a living organism filled with people who bring their emotions to the table, and I recognized that dealing with transformation requires empathy. I could use the diagramming I learned in the program to see how everything works in relation to everything else. To this day, I have a notebook of information that I took with me from the program, and it includes not only my notes, but notes from my classmates. We shared all of the notes that we took with each other, and it’s fantastic to have everybody’s different interpretation of what was taught.”
In fact, the ability to reach out and confer with his fellow program participants even today has been vital to Leong since he returned home. “It has been so helpful to know that the transformation that I am dealing with is not unique to me. Changes are happening across the world, and everybody was going through something somewhat like this,” he reveals. “Being able to bring yourself into the classroom and have those honest, vulnerable conversations is going to change you. It showed me how to look at something intangible through a tangible lens.”
An Ongoing Process
According to Leong, the road ahead for KKCompany is long, and the transformation the company is seeking is filled with challenges, as the post-pandemic socio-economic landscape has changed. However, there is a great deal of promise for the future, and he feels confident that he is prepared to handle whatever comes his way as he navigates his own professional and personal growth as he embraces the opportunities that have arisen.
“I came back to Taiwan with a fresh set of eyes,” he says, noting that the Advanced Management Program not only prepared him for his current undertaking, but also for his future educational pursuits, which includes earning a PhD at some point in the years to come. “This is a lifelong passion project for me. And the Advanced Management Program was an absolutely life-changing experience for me. I always thought that college was transformational, but those five weeks were more transformational than the four years I spent in college. It was exactly what I needed.”
Learn more about the Advanced Management Program.