Smoothie King, a made-to-order healthy smoothie franchise with 1,200 global locations, announced its CEO, Wan Kim, will be featured on the Emmy Award-winning, hit television show UNDERCOVER BOSS. The episode is scheduled to air Friday, October 23 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
“I’m so grateful to have had this experience on UNDERCOVER BOSS,” Kim said. “We are driven by our mission, which is to inspire people to live healthy and active lifestyles, and it was amazing to see how we live out that mission inside a Smoothie King. Being able to wear a disguise was an invaluable experience. Getting a first-hand look at what our guests see and what our team members do on a daily basis provided an incredibly moving, humbling and eye-opening perspective.”
With a disguise that includes shoulder-length hair, a Van Dyke-style beard, a Hawaiian shirt, black chinos and checkered Vans, Kim looks more the part of a “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” extra than the CEO of a global franchise company. Smoothie King’s top executive sported the inconspicuous getup while working at five locations, performing front-of-house tasks like manning the cash register, making smoothies, scrubbing the floors, prepping the work stations and taking drive-thru orders.
It wasn’t an experience Kim was completely new to, though. After all, he started at Smoothie King as a franchisee, opening the brand’s first-ever international location in South Korea in 2003 before opening an additional 120 locations there and eventually becoming CEO.
Still, during his undercover experience, Kim learned more about how Smoothie King operates on the front lines. He jumped at the opportunity to witness the commitment and passion of Smoothie King’s employees and franchisees while receiving a better understanding of their day-to-day personal and professional challenges.
“It gave me a whole new appreciation for how hard our employees work to reflect our mission and vision,” said Kim. “One of the main reasons I wanted to be on this show was because we had recently finished rolling out our Clean Blends™ menu systemwide, and I wanted to see for myself how our employees were adjusting to the new operational procedures and how guests were responding to the healthier options.”
“Truthfully, you don’t realize how much our employees are doing until you get to see it with your own eyes and you’re actually there doing their job with them,” Kim continued. “It’s so much more than just making smoothies. There’s an expectation our guests have when visiting Smoothie King, and these managers and franchisees have done an excellent job demonstrating our core values to maintain the kind of in-store experience we pride ourselves on.”
In its 10th season, UNDERCOVER BOSS is a two-time Emmy Award-winning reality series that follows high-level executives as they slip anonymously into the rank-and-file of their own organizations. Each week, a different leader will sacrifice the comfort of their corner office for an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of their operation.
Follow along and engage with the episode on Smoothie King’s Twitter, Instagram and Facebook pages, @SmoothieKing.
Viewers can also follow UNDERCOVER BOSS on Twitter, @Undercover_CBS, and Facebook, @UndercoverBossCBS. The official show hashtag is #UndercoverBoss.
