More than one management consultants have reported, after a few years spent in their role, having a growing need to “get to grips” with things and support companies through their growth in a more concrete and enduring way.
Ann Cheng, investment manager at Hyundai Ventures since 2014, is one of them. Coming from an engineering background, Cheng completed a BA in nuclear engineering at Berkeley, California. She began her career working as a thermal engineer intern at Boeing Satellite Systems, before moving on to a packaging engineer position at Clorox’s consumer products division.
Her path into management consulting subsequently began as she joined Boston, US-based Sherpa Technology Group, formerly known as 3LP Advisors, focusing on strategy and M&A for technology and intellectual property (IP).
Cheng said: “Sherpa has a very strong footprint in technology and IT, which enabled me to get a lot of training in terms of looking at technology, and understanding and formulating strategies for our clients, mostly corporates at the time. That was a very good bridge for joining Hyundai later on.
“But while management consulting has a very fun side to it, as you always get to work with different clients and be staffed on new projects every few months, which makes for great variety, I wanted to try something a little different.”
Cheng explained having felt a certain degree of frustration with never getting to see the results of a strategy she would recommend to a given group as a consultant.
“As a consultant your role is to come up with a solution for your client, but you never get to see how that strategy is implemented after you leave,” she added.
“When you are on the consulting side, it always seems obvious to you what the client should do. But once you work within a large corporation, you realise just how complex carrying through one’s recommendations can be, as there are so many different teams and so many aspects to take into account.
“I wanted to experience what it was like to be on the other side.”
And so Cheng eventually made the move to CVC with Hyundai Ventures, rebranded as Hyundai Cradle (Centre for Robotic-Augmented Design in Living Experiences) last year. Launched in 2012, Hyundai’s US venture arm currently has three US-based portfolio companies: SoundHound, a sound recognition and natural language processing company with which the firm established a partnership in 2014; wireless power technology company Mojo Mobility; and Ostendo Technologies, which focuses on display technologies and raised more than $40m of funding in 2016.
Aside from the supporting role she had in the Ostendo investment, Cheng also reported being in charge of supporting the US development of one of Hyundai’s Korea-based portfolio companies, StradVision, specialised in object detection and recognition software for the automotive industry. Outside the US, Hyundai was part of the $2bn-plus round for southeast Asia-based ride-hailing service Grab at the start of the year as part of a strategic partnership to expand Hyundai’s future mobility services in the region.
John Suh, who is vice president of Hyundai Motor Group and has been heading the group’s US venture arm since inception, said: “Ann has been a steadfast and persistent contributor to Hyundai Motor Company’s corporate venturing activities in Silicon Valley since 2014.
“She has been able to work across a variety of technologies from energy storage to imaging sensors to biometric technologies, and always works diligently to define the fit between a startup and our technology or product roadmaps, progressively developing her own network in the industry.”
One of the biggest challenges that Cheng has had to face during her time at Hyundai, she said, was learning to communicate well inside of such a large, cross-cultural corporation.
“When you are on the venture team within a corporation,” Cheng explained, “many people do not really understand what you do or your role. So the way you continuously build relationships with other business units and keep the communication going is absolutely key.
“A lot of companies struggle with their CVC units, as I think there is a lot of leg work that people do not necessarily see at all. It is the CVC’s task to manage internal expectations, and to keep educating businesses internally about what it means to be a successful CVC.”
Over the next three to five years, Cheng sees herself pursuing her progression within Hyundai, with the goal of continuing to support existing investments as well finding new opportunities within the automotive space with a particular attention to niche technologies such as self-driving cars, mobility services and smart cities. In the future, Hyundai’s CVC organisation could also be expanding its geographical coverage, with potential new locations including Europe, China and Israel.
In her free time, the investment manager indulges in various sports activities such running, swimming and cycling, and enjoys reading “quality fiction books – an essential occupation to keep your mind fresh!” she said.