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Ken Wong is president of Lenovo’s newly founded Solution and Services Group. Here's how he got there.
Ken Wong is a busy man. Based in Hong Kong, the president of Lenovo’s Solution and Services Group, or SSG, is always on the go. When we caught up with him in Singapore, he had just come back from a whirlwind tour to Beijing, Tokyo, Charlotte in North Carolina, and Barcelona.
“I’m flying like a bird,” he says. “During the pandemic I stayed in Hong Kong with my family which was really great, but now I have to make up for lost time meeting clients, colleagues and business partners face to face. I call it ‘meeting debt’.”
As the president of Lenovo’s Solution and Services Group, Wong’s mission is to lead the Lenovo’s transformation to a service-led company.
“It’s exciting, it’s the future of Lenovo,” says Wong, whose career in Lenovo is long and lauded; he led Lenovo Asia Pacific PCs and Smart Devices for five years where, under his leadership, he took the business to the number one position. He was then responsible for driving the development and implementation of Lenovo’s global corporate strategy. He was then Chairman of NEC Lenovo Japan Group, and Fujitsu Client Computing Limited, spending half of his time in Japan where he developed a love for ramen – more on that below.
We spoke with Wong about what makes a great leader, the importance of staying curious, and how he makes the most of his hectic travel schedule.
What’s a typical working day like for you?
KW: About 50% of my time is spent around people. One is to look at our organisation and operation model to find what we need to execute our strategy. A big part of my job is to look at which names to put in which boxes. The right leader, right profile, right personality, right experiences to make SSG work. It involves attracting new talent from outside, retaining the talent that we have and also growing from within. Like, how can we help the future leaders of Lenovo to become real leaders?
The other 50% I spend externally with customers and business partners and learning new things. In the tech industry, the cycle isn’t years, it’s months, quarters… so I spend a lot of time learning about advancement in tech, customer pain points and what the implications are to our business so we can adjust our strategy and execution.
What are the qualities of a good leader?
KW: Number one is, how can you surround yourself with good people? I think that is the most important, based on my experience.
The second is diversity. Especially in my role, where I’m dealing with different markets. I have a team of 10 to 12, with people across all continents. There’s a lot of input I can’t get by just sitting in Asia, which would create a lot of blind spots. This diversity allows for experience in different cultures and different ways of doing business.
Finally, it’s important to be curious about everything around you. Especially when you’re working in the tech industry. There are so many new things coming out every week, every day. History is always being made in our industry, so you have to keep learning.
Above Ken Wong, president of Lenovo’s Solution and Services Group
Ken Wong, president of Lenovo’s Solution and Services Group
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What’s the most rewarding part of what you do?
KW: I’ve had the chance to work with some great people. And today, whether they’re still with Lenovo or have progressed in their career to something that better fits their aspirations… it makes me happy that we were able to grow together, or helped people to grow. I see it as one of our most important legacies that we can create – to develop people’s talents.
What impact have you had on your industry?
KW: There’s one project I’m particularly proud of that comes to mind. During the Covid-19 pandemic, a lot of people couldn’t renew their Hong Kong Identity Cards on a timely basis… which created a lot of challenges, like being unable to return to Mainland China to see their families.
We quickly worked with the Hong Kong government to come up with a solution to accelerate the process. In the end, we were able to expedite the process of renewing Hong Kong Identity Cards by two to five times faster. We received a lot of positive feedback from the community. It was a rewarding project.
What does innovation mean to you?
KW: I think when anyone mentioned innovation, people will immediately think of state of the art technology. Personally, I have seen a lot of this in various points in my career. But the only innovation that matters is that which can create value or outcomes to communities and businesses around you. I will always value what creates value higher than others.
At Lenovo, we have made an important decision to double our research and development investment in the coming three years, and have set up laboratories around the world. At the end of the day, being in the business of solutions and services, we are the connective tissue that ensures all these innovations that we bring into our company create desired outcomes.
How is Lenovo accelerating your service-led transformation to better serve clients and partners?
KW: There are a few things. Lenovo started as a PC company, and now the PC has evolved to become intelligent devices… that’s one component we have.
There’s another business group that focuses on infrastructure – something as simple as the server in your server room, all the way to the cloud, or a high performance computer that helps to do things like weather forecasts.
Our mission is to find a way to connect all these things together, to create bigger value for our company. How do we accelerate the digital transformation for our company and for our customers?
An example is Amazon. As you remember, they started as an e-store for books. But today, their biggest business is the cloud, or Amazon Web Services business. It’s not how they started, but they took the infrastructure they used to run the e-store and realised they can sell that infrastructure.
At Lenovo, our internal IT group provides support to run the whole organisation; 70 thousand people across 180 markets.
Their ability to support a fortune 500 company is the best proof point that whatever we tell our customers, we can walk our talk. It’s similar for us so we can support Lenovo global operations, from operation IT perspective, there must b a lot of IT experience and expertise that we can repackage and sell to our customer.
What’s an idea or thought you heard recently that you found interesting?
KW: Right now, there are a lot of discussions about AI cannibalising work, which I found interesting. History always repeats itself, and whenever something new comes up, there’s always hope and fear.
Usually, people start with fear. Like the idea that autonomous cars will eliminate the need for drivers, or when production lines first came out, people thought labour jobs would go extinct. But history has shown again and again shown that when something disruptive comes into our world, there’s always an advancement in our ecomony and productivity that ultimately creates new jobs.
I think AI can be extremely beneficial. There might be some jobs that become irrelevant in the future, but I strongly believe there will be a lot more jobs being created. Even in my operations I need AI specialists, which I can’t find in the market – yet.
As someone who travels a lot for work, do you make time to enjoy each destination?
KW: You have to. Otherwise it can be very boring, especially when I’m travelling alone most of the time. I’m a foodie, and there’s always some cuisine that I like in each city.
For example, bak kut teh is the first thing I go to eat in Singapore. In Japan, one of my favourites is Ramen. In the US – don’t laugh – but I love trying all the different kinds of fast food.
Because I’m a foodie, I have to work to balance in the intake and outtake. I like CrossFit, so I’ll try to hit the boxes early in the morning before my meetings. I also like golf.
How do you unplug?
KW: Meditation. I use headspace. I’m a Christian, so I’m careful when I meditate as some streams of meditation is close to other religions or beliefs, but I find Headspace to be very neutral and practical. It also has a lot of information about the benefits of meditation, and the science behind it.
In my role, there are many instances where I feel nervous or under pressure, and meditation really allows me to unplug.
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Coco Marett is a writer and editor who grew up between Hong Kong and Melbourne. She currently heads the travel section for Tatler Asia, and manages the Tatler Travel account on Instagram. She is known for her features on unique, under-the-radar properties and destinations. She's also known for her in-depth interviews that paint a refreshingly candid portrait of influential figures across various industries —from artists to political figures, CEOs to celebrity chefs. Follow her on Instagram @cocomarett
