Thomas J. Byrne joined The Korea Society as President in August 2015. Since June 2023, he has also taken on the role of “Honorary Ambassador,” appointed by the minister of MOTIE under the auspices of KOTRA/Invest Korea, to help promote trade and investment ties between Korea and the U.S. Byrne comes to the Society from Moody’s Ratings, where he was Senior Vice President, Regional Manager, spokesperson, and Director of Analysis for the Sovereign Risk Group in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions, based in Singapore. Prior to that, he was the Senior Economist of the Asia Department at the Institute of International Finance in Washington D.C. from 1984 to 1996.

Byrne teaches as an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in New York City and at Georgetown University’s Graduate School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C. Byrne has an M.A. in International Relations with a Concentration in International Economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a B.S. in Biology from State University of New York at Stony Brook. Before his graduate work, he served in South Korea for three years as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer.

As president, he has written opinion articles published in The Hill, The National Interest, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg View, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Reuters Breakingviews.