Franchise Update Magazine Issue IV, 2013 | Page 12

Grow Market Lead

CEO
profile:
New Smoothie King
Wan Kim is reshaping the 40-year-old brand
By Kerry Pipes

W

an Kim is a quick study.
After graduating from
Boston University with
a degree in international
management, he began his MBA studies
at the University of California–Irvine at
the crest of the investment-heavy dotcom boom of the late ’90s/early 2000s.
“I left school to go back to South
Korea and chase the bubble,” he says.
“But I discovered there’s no such thing
as easy money.” It was a career move that

left him thinking hard about what kind
of business was sustainable.
Kim says he knew people had to eat,
and he liked what he saw in the franchise
business model. But he wasn’t interested
in less healthy choices like burgers and
pizza. “I had been a regular customer at
Smoothie King when I was in college
in America,” he says. “I thought I could
make the concept work here in Korea.” He was right, but he had a tough
road ahead when he signed on with the

brand in 2003.
“Nobody in South Korea even knew
what a smoothie was, much less had heard
of the Smoothie King brand,” he says.
But that didn’t stop the hard-driving
Kim. As the master franchisee in South
Korea, he created awareness, assembled
a great team, and built the brand to 130
units in less than a decade.
Operating all those franchise locations in his native South Korea wasn’t
enough, however. In 2008, he began to
think seriously about buying the brand.
He approached Smoothie King founder
Steve Kuhnau several times over the
next four years about his willingness to
sell. In the summer of 2012, Kuhnau
was finally ready. (For a pre-sale profile
of Kuhnau, see Franchise Update, Issue
I, 2012). Kim secured $59 million in
capital from Standard Chartered Private
Equity and South Korea’s National Pension Fund and inked the deal.
“I thought I could take the brand and
replicate some of the successes I had experienced in South Korea,” he says. For
example, he says, the AUV for Smoothie
King units in South Korea was $800,000,
while in the U.S. it was just $390,000.
Kim hired someone to take over the
South Korean operation and headed
back to the U.S. to take over as CEO
of the brand. As you might expect, his
plans are big.
“First up, I’m trying to create a brand
culture that is experienced from the top
to the bottom,” he says. “It’s centered
around a concept of ‘a healthy and active lifestyle.’” He’s pushing this culture
with a new logo, new store design, and
new training tools.
Of course, continued growth and
expansion are a part of the recipe. “I
Name: Wan Kim
Title: Global CEO
Company: Smoothie King
Units: More than 600 units in 32 states, the
Cayman Islands, Singapore, and the Republic
of Korea
Age: 41
Family: Married with two daughters and a son
Years in franchising: Almost 10
Years in current position: 18 months

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