2005-2006 Board Member Testimonial
Sung-min Chung
WG '06
1. What was your motivation or interest in participating in the program?
My motivation for joining the program was based my desire to be involved in the non-profit sector as an operator at some point in my career. Although my financial needs preclude me from pursuing this interest now, this is the area that I want to be involved in. As a result, I thought that this would be a great opportunity to see what happens in a real non-profit and build a good foundation that could prove to be useful later on.
2. Could you give us at least one anecdote of an instance where your Wharton education was particularly helpful in addressing a problem encountered by the organization for which you work?
My non-profit is currently developing a strategic plan to understand where opportunities lie for expansion of services. In this instance, I helped put together a simple framework that hopefully will help them breakdown the opportunities available and understand where the best options lie.
3. Are there any aspects of the training program that turned out to be particularly helpful?
The training helped me temper my expectations of what to expect and more importantly what not to expect.
4 . How have you benefited from the experience to date?
One of the things that I realized from this process is that I want to play an operations role in running a non-profit and executing their strategy. I realized that at the Board level, there is not enough direct interaction with the organization does not do it for me.
5. Has participating in the NPBLP changed your outlook on participating on a non-profit board in the future?
Yes. Although I would welcome an opportunity to participate on another board in the future, if given an option between joining at the board level or at the executive level, I would choose the latter.
