Aimee serves primarily consumer, apparel, fashion, and luxury clients on a broad set of marketing and sales challenges and opportunities. She also helps companies explore new business opportunities and design and implement growth strategies that deliver sustainable value in today’s rapidly changing consumer and retail landscapes.
Since joining McKinsey in 2001, Aimee has worked with diverse clients across Asia, Europe, and North America in industries ranging from beauty, apparel, fashion, and luxury to consumer goods and healthcare. She helps executives understand shifting consumer behavior and sentiment, address challenges arising with e-commerce, and seize growth opportunities in retail markets.
Her expertise has guided both multinational brands and retailers seeking to understand and win in Asia’s key markets (China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia, for example) and Asia players looking to replicate their local success and globalize.
Examples of her recent client work include the following:
- developing a multiyear digital and retail transformation program for a top ten global beauty player, including upgrading core retail capabilities and leveraging advanced analytics for digital marketing
- supporting the apparel and home-fashion turnaround strategy for a leading Japanese retailer through a comprehensive diagnostic of merchandizing and positioning strategy
- conducting several due diligences for private-equity and brand companies looking to acquire or invest in retail, food, beverage, beauty, and fashion businesses in Asia
- developing market-entry and growth strategies for brands and retailers keen to accelerate growth in strategic battlegrounds in Asia (for example, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia)
- transforming the brand and value proposition for companies looking to reposition themselves in light of dramatic shifts in competition and rapid evolution of consumer behaviors
- defining digital strategies—both e-commerce and marketing—for leading global brands in China and supporting the capability building required to be competitive in the local digital ecosystem
- designing and implementing multiple revenue-growth-management and Chinese route-to-market programs for leading global brands in various product categories, including beauty, packaged food, confectionary, and beverages (alcoholic and nonalcoholic)
A leading thinker on the dynamics of the luxury-consumer-goods industry, Aimee has written extensively on emerging consumer and market trends in high-end retail. She was a guest speaker at the Condé Nast International Luxury Conference in April 2016, where she spoke about the Chinese global luxury traveler, and at the WWD Fashion Summit in October 2015, where she lectured about the changing face of distribution.
Aimee is fluent in both English and Korean and was previously a professor at the world’s largest female educational institute, located in Seoul.
Published work
“2020 Top picks: Our most popular articles,” McKinsey & Company, December 2020
“What makes Asia−Pacific’s Generation Z different?,” McKinsey & Company, June 2020
“Rapid Revenue Recovery: A road map for post-COVID-19 growth,” McKinsey & Company, May 2020
“Leading with purpose: How marketing and sales leaders can shape the next normal,” McKinsey & Company, April 2020
“Survey: Asian consumer sentiment during the COVID-19 crisis,” McKinsey & Company, April 2020
“Cautiously optimistic: Chinese consumer behavior post-COVID-19,” McKinsey & Company, March 2020
“The Chinese luxury consumer,” McKinsey Quarterly, August 2019
“How young Chinese consumers are reshaping global luxury,” McKinsey & Company, April 2019
“What beauty players can teach the consumer sector about digital disruption,” McKinsey & Company, April 2018
“Changing channels landscape to satisfy Japanese luxury consumers’ appetite for novelty,” McKinsey & Company, November 2017
“The glittering power of cities for luxury growth,” McKinsey & Company, September 2014
“Winning today’s globe-hopping and shopping Chinese luxury consumers,” McKinsey & Company, June 2014
“Korea’s luxury market: Demanding consumers, but room to grow” (PDF–1.4 MB), McKinsey & Company, August 2011
Past experience
Ewha Womans University, Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation
Assistant professor and department head
Education
Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania
MBA, finance
Ewha Womans University
BS, biology