IT training chief plans growth by thinking small
Nelson Yeung, the new managing director of Global Knowledge Network, is thinking small.
While his duties at the information technology (IT) training firm will include the task of expanding the business, Mr Yeung also needs to change the image of the company in the minds of customers and employees.
Massachusetts, US-based Global Knowledge, the world's fifth-largest IT education provider, was created in 1995 through the purchase of Digital Equipment's learning services division.
Two years on, the company is still experiencing an identity problem.
'Customers will still consider us part of Digital. A lot of employees still do business the Digital way, although we are now a smaller company.
'I need to re-engineer the whole team,' he explained, which is where Mr Yeung's self-described 'funny background' comes in.
A former newspaper journalist and self-employed business management consultant, he joined Digital Learning Services in 1995 - just before its sale - as human resources manager.
He said making the switch to managing director was not a big jump.
'When you work as a human resources director, you offer your expertise to the company. I now offer my expertise to the employees,' Mr Yeung said.
The key career transformation for Mr Yeung was his switch from journalism to business management 20 years ago.
The reason? 'The pay was so terrible in those days, a lot of people had two jobs,' he explained.
It spurred Mr Yeung to earn a master's degree in business administration from the University of Bath, which was followed by a nine-year stint at the Hong Kong Management Association.
He also worked independently as a management consultant in Canada and Hong Kong, until the call of the private sector brought him to back into the fold.
Mr Yeung believed his knowledge of business management would help Global Knowledge find the most effective way to train corporate customers and help him guide the 20 employees as they adjusted to a new company structure.
'We spend a lot of time in meetings,' he said, 'but it is important to let them understand what the other colleagues are doing'.
