Sage and Advisor

Tsun-yan Hsieh is a Counselor to CEOs, an Advisor to corporate boards and a Mentor to rising executives.

He built his craft on a confluence of four activities: 1) Counseling more than 30 Chairmen and CEOs over 30 years of top management consulting with McKinsey, 2) His research, speaking and writing on the subject of leadership, 3) His personal experiences as a leader and 4) His service on corporate and community boards.

Tsun-yan is Director Emeritus and Special Consultant to Mckinsey. He joined in Toronto and became its Managing Director, Canada.  His client record is legendary across 30 countries and 29 industries. He enjoyed mentoring younger associates, several of whom have become top leaders at McKinsey. He founded McKinsey’s Leadership Services globally to help clients grow more, better leaders faster. As Chairman of McKinsey’s Professional Development Committee, he introduced apprenticeship and a leadership model that stood the test of time.    He led the Organization Practice for 12 years and returned to Asia in 2000 as Managing Director of ASEAN practice and was Chairman of Asia Client Committee 2002-2009. He also served on McKinsey’s Directors Committee for 7 years.

Tsun-yan left a legacy of management concepts some of which have become evergreen in business including Global Champions, Performance Ethic, Pivotal Jobs, Change Readiness, Employee Propositions and Leadership Engine.

He is currently an Independent Director of Sony Corporation and serves also on its Global Advisory Council. He also advises the boards of other Asian companies.

His public service advisory included upgrading the Singapore Health System in resource efficiency and operations performance and transforming Singapore’s Board of Trade to help internationalize SMEs.  Other landmark work included ASEAN Competitiveness for the ASEAN heads of State and Canada’s Competitiveness for the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

He serves the community in which he lives. Board roles in Singapore included the Singapore International Foundation, the National University of Singapore Business School, the Institute of Policy Studies and the Singapore Symphony. In Toronto, he served on the boards of Covenant House, the University Health Network and raised funds for the Toronto Symphony.

Mr. Hsieh has an MBA from Harvard.  He won double-gold medals at the University of Alberta where he read Mechanical Engineering as a President’s Scholar with a Colombo Plan Award.  He is married for 34 years with 2 grown children. thsieh@theawakengroup.com