Keat Yap

Partner, Kearney

Kearney partner Keat Yap has deep operations experience and expertise and a global perspective that helps him to maximize impact on every client engagement. Since joining Kearney in 2008, he has brought a results-focused mindset to client work in his quest to help companies transform and to help the individuals he works with develop and make positive change. In one of Keat’s most memorable projects, he worked with a company that had a CEO who sought to modernize the business through a major transformation effort. To fund the project, the team started with a procurement cost takeout work stream that addressed a wide range of categories and gave the client a return on investment in excess of 10:1. From there, the team looked at the plan–make–deliver cycle for the company’s products in order to reduce production time and improve supply chain resilience through process redesign and a revamped product design philosophy centered on platforming and a “design to x” approach. Another work stream improved the company’s market-facing stance to improve its market attractiveness. The business also embarked upon a mission toward carbon neutrality, greatly enhancing its industry-leading ESG stance. Keat has extensive international experience dating back to his days with Intel, where he worked in Japan, China, Korea, and the United States. “My time fresh out of school with Intel was a great experience for me as a future consultant, as I received a great view of high-tech manufacturing and R&D,” he notes. “I worked with customers and suppliers alike and got a very strong sense of what ‘good’ looks like.” Based in the firm’s Kuala Lumpur office, Keat works all throughout the APAC region.