John J-H Kim, Chief Executive Officer

John brings to DMC his extensive background in education, business, and management, having led several organizations in the education field previously.  As Co-Founder and CEO, John is responsible for all aspects of ensuring that DMC brings the best management and leadership practices to its network of public school district leaders and administrators from around the country.  He works closely with superintendents to plan, analyze, and build system-wide efforts that lead to higher student achievement while improving operations and lowering costs.

In addition to his responsibilities at DMC,  John is on the faculty of the Harvard Business School where he is part of the Social Enterprise Initiative.  He is a core faculty member of PELP (Public Education Leadership Project), a joint project between the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard Business School.

DMC Project Experiences Include:

• Directing a strategic planning process for a 25,000+ student school district in aligning and prioritizing various initiatives in order to help turn tactical initiatives into action and results.  Project met target goals and increased the overall clarity of roles and responsibilities leading to greater levels of accountability.
• Managing the development and implementation of Project COACH: an innovative and powerful new teacher evaluation system for Hamilton County Department of Education (Chattanooga, TN) as part of Tennessee’s reform plan under the “Race to the Top”.  This evaluation system is based on both quantitative and qualitative measures and utilizes a web-based tool to facilitate tracking and monitoring.
• Guiding a comprehensive planning effort for a 50,000+ student urban school district to help meet the academic needs of its diverse community while reducing annual costs by more than $50M.

Other Professional Experiences Include:

• Management Consultant at McKinsey & Company, Inc., a global strategic management consulting firm, where he helped clients implement new strategies and improve operating efficiencies.
• Founding CEO of Chancellor Beacon Academies, Inc., a school management company that grew to serve more than 20,000 children.
• President of Kaplan Learning Services, the institutional division of Kaplan, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Washington Post Company.

Publications Include:

• Founding Editor of The District Management Journal, a magazine that provides actionable insights on how to better lead and manage public school districts.
• Co-authoring a book on strategic planning for school districts.

Education:

• AB magna cum laude from Harvard College
• MBA from Harvard Business School

Boards:

• Vice Chairman of the National Governing Board of BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life), a non-profit organization that increases the educational and life achievement of elementary school children living in low-income communities.  
• Executive Committee of the Board of Advisors of the Institute for Recruitment of Teachers (IRT) at Phillips Academy, Andover.