Sang Kim

When Sang Kim graduated from college and began working in the private sector, the focus on customers was a culture shock.

Trained in physics and scientific computing, Kim had approached problems as technical ones. At the software company Oracle, where he worked as an engineer on supply-chain optimization, he gained meaningful exposure to the business environment. “I learned that there was a whole new world out there,” he says.

The experience sparked Kim’s interest in operations management. He saw how his quantitative background could be applied to business problems, and became curious about the kinds of questions business-school professors were studying. That led him to the Wharton School, where he earned a PhD in operations management. “I always knew I wanted to be a specialist,” Kim says.

Now a professor of operations management at Yale SOM, Kim has taught the core course Operations Engine as well as electives including Supply Chain Management and Reinventing Operations in the Digital Age. He now serves as senior associate dean for centers and executive programs, a role he sees as a practical application of his operations expertise.

“I enjoy innovation,” he says. “Can we create better synergy and uncover more benefits?”

Kim’s research focuses on supply chain management. “When we think about supply chains, we think about the interconnection of many different firms in various industries working together seamlessly to achieve a firm’s goals,” he says.

Using tools from operations research and game theory, Kim develops models that help decision-makers understand how different strategic choices might play out—and uncover insights that may not be immediately obvious.

These decisions tend to be invisible to the average consumer, Kim says. For example, he points out, most Amazon customers do not consider the complexity of a supply chain that allows them to receive an online order within hours.

“People get to know about supply chains when something goes wrong,” Kim says. “Before the pandemic, people didn’t pay too much attention. I think COVID changed everything.”

Historically, global supply chains have optimized for cost and efficiency. For example, concentrating production in one country allows companies to benefit from economies of scale, Kim explains. However, in recent years, global trends—geopolitical risks, national security concerns, and tariffs—have forced companies to prioritize resilience against unanticipated shocks as much as efficiency.

“It’s pushing a lot of companies to think differently than the way they have for decades,” Kim says. Scholars of supply-chain management are on the front lines of this transformation.

Kim’s current research helps companies explore the tradeoffs that come with diversifying their supply chains. One model examines how a multinational firm with markets in both China and the U.S. might respond to tariffs and geopolitical risks. The model accounts for decisions about capacity, production, and pricing in each country.

“Generally speaking, there’s a lot more uncertainty,” Kim says. “Characterizing this uncertainty is also increasingly difficult. Relying simply on forecasting may not be enough for some of the decisions that we make.”

But textbooks and industry playbooks, which assume a stable global environment, have yet to catch up. Through his new elective course Building Adaptive Enterprises: Supply Chains, Geopolitical Risks, and National Security, Kim aims to bring his new frameworks for navigating a more uncertain, non-linear world into the classroom. Through a series of case studies, students will explore how public and private organizations can assess risk and make sourcing and investment decisions amid uncertainty.

While the field is evolving, Kim sees certain principles as enduring. In Operations Engine, which he taught for over a decade, he showed students how foundational concepts such as capacity and bottlenecks can help them understand complex operational problems.

“When I get the signal that what I taught in the classroom had an impact on how they think or how they conduct their business—whether they’re still in school or they’ve graduated—that’s really rewarding,” Kim says.

The learning goes both ways, he adds: “I teach concepts, and students will bring up examples that I never thought would be an application of those concepts.” In particular, Kim enjoys engaging with students in the MBA for Executives program, who bring years of professional experience and a diverse range of perspectives to his classroom.

SOM’s mission of educating leaders for business and society has given Yale SOM’s operations faculty a distinctive character, Kim says. Working alongside colleagues who study public- and nonprofit-sector problems has also shaped the way he approaches his own work. In one project, Kim studied how regulators can use inspections and penalties to encourage companies to disclose environmental compliance violations—research he says he might not have pursued elsewhere.

The school is small and community-oriented, Kim says. “There’s a strong bond among alumni, students, and professors that I find quite extraordinary.”