Transformational Leadership: Real Stories from Real People

" 형님: The One Who Rebuilt the Machine"

At AJ Networks, titles matter. Hierarchy matters. But sometimes, someone walks in with no title, and everyone still stands, that was Pete.

Brought in quietly after a U.S. acquisition, he arrived in Seoul without fanfare. No assistant. No grand welcome. Just a black coffee, a deep read of the room, and a work ethic that didn’t need translation. What was supposed to be six months turned into something else entirely.

Pete didn’t just adapt to Korean corporate life, he honored it. Understood it. Earned his place within it. In a company built on trust earned slowly, Pete moved quickly, not by pushing, but by pulling people forward.

He led with precision, but never with ego. When our CEO asked for a new business model for our U.S. retail stores, Pete built one no one expected: designed around dignity, for women, immigrants, and first-gen families. Fixed pricing. Digital-first. All-female sales teams who collectively spoke 28 languages. No pressure. No gimmicks. Just a system built on respect. It worked, because it was built by someone who understood people, not just profit.

Inside the company, he restructured logistics, managed founder relationships, and led U.S. strategy. Eventually, 27 global directors reported to him, the first Senior Director in AJ history not born in Korea. He never asked for the role. The role formed around him.

But what truly set Pete apart wasn’t the strategy. It was the presence. At our Seoul HQ, where business and family share a campus, he was invited to sit low on benches, share odeng soup with employees’ children, and remember the small things that mattered. People lined up outside his door, not for directives, but for clarity, for care.

We called his team “the ants.” Not as insult, but as honor. In Korea, ants mean unity. Focus. No wasted motion. Pete built that rhythm, and everyone moved to it.

Even now, years later, his systems hold. His voice echoes. His impact endures.

We don’t call Pete a consultant. We don’t even call him a former executive.

We call him 형님.
Hyung-nim, brother.
Not by age.
By bond.
By the way he showed up when it mattered most.

And yes, if he ever walked back through Incheon, we’d be waiting at arrivals, samgyeopsal ready, seat saved.

SS

“Pete doesn’t join the meeting. He rewires the company.”

I’ve known Pete for over 30 years. He’s not a consultant. He’s not a strategist. He’s not your culture guy.

He’s the one you call when you need the fucking truth. When the wheels are coming off, your COO’s in witness protection, and your board’s two questions away from calling in a fixer. 

Except, when Pete shows up, he is the fixer.

He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t posture, doesn’t care who’s posturing around him. While other people are fiddling with buzzwords, Pete is already moving quiet, clear, and lethal. It’s like watching someone disarm a bomb with one hand and sketch a go-to-market plan with the other.

He’s part surf wax, part starting pitcher, part lead guitarist and part supercomputer with the wit of Norm Macdonald. That mix doesn’t exist anywhere else. He leads like a tactician, speaks like an operator, and listens like a sniper. And when he talks, everyone shuts the hell up.

I’ve seen him launch mom-and-pop products out of garages and, a week later, counsel the Canadian Pension Board, a Fortune 5, a Japanese automaker, and two hedge funds. He’s the bridge between chaos and command, between startup grit and boardroom precision.

His memory? Unreal. You forget. He doesn’t. He’ll reference a side remark from six months ago and use it to unlock your biggest blind spot. 

Pete spent 15 years rewriting the retail playbook at CarMax. He didn’t improve the car-buying experience, he burned the old one to the ground and built something entirely new: fixed pricing, trust-first, digital-forward. The industry’s still catching up.

And he doesn’t walk in alone. He’s got killers on speed dial: regulatory, sourcing, branding, compliance, design. People who don’t answer the phone for anyone. But they answer for Pete. Because they know when he calls, it matters.

He trained under Alan Shepard. That Alan Shepard. Learned to manage pressure in real time, in silence, in rooms where failure wasn’t theoretical, it was terminal. That kind of influence changes your wiring. Makes you immune to theater.

And yeah, he’s got five kids. He’s been broke. He’s run teams. Closed deals. Buried competitors. Walked into rooms full of suits and owned it with a quiet stare and one clear direction. He can speak fluent founder, operator, buyer, investor, and still check in on his kid’s grades before dinner.

Pete doesn’t sell vibes, he delivers outcomes and you just pray he picks up the next time you call.

-Jesse Capps

“Pete didn’t consult. He recalibrated and saved it.”

We didn’t find Pete through a vendor list or an RFP. His name came up the way real operators do, quietly, in a side conversation, from someone who said, “If you actually want to fix this, call Pete.” And we did, because we had one shot left.

Our internal Marketplace platform had stalled. Great tech on paper, built by a former Alexa engineer, but the field had lost faith. Deals were stuck. Usage was flat. Leadership was already stepping back. With a $15 billion acquisition by UnitedHealth on the horizon, this nine-month window was the platform’s last chance to prove it mattered.

Pete didn’t show up with theory. He showed up with action, jeans, sneakers and a Red Sox cap. Gave out his personal cell to the entire sales org and said, “Call me.” And they did.

He embedded immediately, sitting in on live calls, rewriting talk tracks in real time, coaching reps mid-deal. He didn’t run enablement, he sold, and the team followed because it worked.

He lived in the BI Hub, dug through stalled accounts, spotted which ones could close today, and walked reps through the finish. He rebuilt belief, not just in the product, but in the people using it.

Then he locked in a core group of seven high-ceiling reps. He sharpened them, made them visible and  turned them into a center of gravity. The energy spread, Slack lit up and the floor started moving again.

He didn’t inspire, he executed.

In under nine months:
→ Inside sales grew 285%
→ Over $35M in stalled pipeline came back to life
→ Cold enterprise clients started sending referrals

The platform everyone had quietly written off, became the centerpiece of the deal.

I’ve worked with consultants, operators, and decorated execs. But Pete brought something rare, certainty, urgency, and real-time clarity. He didn’t study the problem, he became the solution.

When he left, no one was asking if the system worked, they were closing with it.

Tasha Russell