Category: Business & Economics

Changyong Rhee  assumed his current position as Director of the Asia and Pacific Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in February 2014. Prior to coming to the Fund Dr. Rhee was chief economist at the Asian Development Bank (ADB). He was the chief spokesperson for ADB on economic and development trends, and oversaw the Economics and Research Department. Dr. Rhee was the secretary-general of the G20 summit’s Presidential Committee in the Republic of Korea. Prior to his appointment at the FSC, Dr. Rhee was a Professor of Economics at Seoul National University and Assistant Professor at University of Rochester. He was also a frequent and active policy advisor to the Government of Korea, including in the Office of the President, the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Bank of Korea, the Korea Securities Depository, and the Korea Development Institute. His key research interests include macroeconomics, financial economics, and the Korean economy. He has published many papers in these fields. Dr. Rhee obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University, and his Bachelor degree in Economics from Seoul National University.

Alexander “Sandy” Wolfson  is a Managing Director and Head of Global Country Risk Management at Citigroup. In that capacity, he is responsible for assessing and managing country risk across Citi’s global franchises, setting limits on country risk exposures, and running the Country Risk Committee which reviews Citi’s largest country franchises. In addition, he advises senior management on global risk issues. Prior to joining Citigroup, he worked as an economist at the International Monetary Fund (1999-2005), working primarily on Indonesia and Japan. Sandy holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Thomas J. Byrne  (Moderator) joined The Korea Society as its President in August of 2015. He came to the Society from Moody’s Investor Services, where he was Regional Manager, Spokesperson, and Director of Analysis for the Sovereign Risk Group in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions. Before moving to Moody’s in 1996, he was the Senior Economist of the Asia Department at the Institute of International Finance in Washington DC. Mr. Byrne has an MA degree in International Relations with an emphasis on economics from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Before his graduate work, he served in South Korea for three years as a US Peace Corps volunteer.

Koshy Mathai  is Deputy Division Chief in the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department, covering Korea and Mongolia. In the last few years, he has also led missions to Maldives and Fiji and served as resident representative to Sri Lanka. Earlier in his career, he worked in the Fiscal Affairs and Western Hemisphere Departments of the IMF, covering a range of countries including the United States, Turkey, and Zambia. Mr. Mathai has been at the IMF for 17 years. He holds a bachelor’s from Harvard and a PhD from Stanford, both in economics.

Thomas J. Byrne  (moderator) joined The Korea Society as its President in August of 2015. He came to the Society from Moody’s Investor Services, where he was Regional Manager, Spokesperson, and Director of Analysis for the Sovereign Risk Group in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions. Before moving to Moody’s in 1996, he was the Senior Economist of the Asia Department at the Institute of International Finance in Washington DC. Mr. Byrne has an MA degree in International Relations with an emphasis on economics from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Before his graduate work, he served in South Korea for three years as a US Peace Corps volunteer.

Hyuk-Jeen Suh is the Head of the Samsung Ventures East Coast office bringing over 20 years of industry experience in consumer electronics, biotech, and semiconductor. Before joining Samsung Ventures, Hyuk-Jeen worked at J.P. Morgan investment banking in the Technology, Media, and Telecom group. Prior to J.P. Morgan, he was the global senior business development and marketing manager at MEMSIC, a semiconductor startup with clients in the automobile and consumer electronics industry.  He led the global marketing strategy which contributed to the successful IPO of MEMSIC in 2007.  Prior to joining MEMSIC, Hyuk-Jeen was a senior research engineer at Sequenom, a biotech startup. He conducted research on DNA biochips and led joint venture projects with Hitachi and Samsung to design high-throughput bio instruments.  He began his career at Intel Corporation as a process engineer, leading yield improvement projects which contributed to one of the highest yield rates in Intel history for the Pentium microprocessor. He advises startup companies and is a mentor at various startup accelerators. He is a guest speaker at universities including Harvard University, Yale University, and MIT and judges for the MIT $100K entrepreneurship competition. Hyuk-Jeen earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering, focusing on Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  He earned his MBA from Yale School of Management. He holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering, B.A in economics and M.E in electrical engineering, all from Cornell University.

Bernard Moon is a Co-founder & Partner at SparkLabs Global Ventures. He is also a Co-founder & Partner at SparkLabs, a startup accelerator in Korea. Previously, he was Co-founder & CEO of Vidquik, a web conferencing & sales solutions platform. Bernard was a Managing Director at the Lunsford Group, which is a private investment firm with holdings in real estate, healthcare and other industries. Bernard was Co-founder & VP of Business Development of GoingOn Networks, a social media platform for companies, and also led their product development where BusinessWeek recognized them in their “Best of the Web” list. Previously, Bernard was a Director at iRG, a leading boutique investment bank in Asia, where he focused on TMT companies.

Bernard co-founded a couple of other startups, raised over $50 million in venture capital, and enjoys helping other entrepreneurs as much as possible: He serves as a mentor to MuckerLab, a startup accelerator in LA, and SixThirty, a fintech accelerator in St. Louis.. He is a frequent guest writer to various technology journals, such as VentureBeat, Mashable, TechCrunch, and ReadWrite, and has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications. 

Bernard has spoke and lectured about startups and entrepreneurship at Stanford University, Global Entrepreneurship Congress, American Chamber of Commerce in Korea and other organizations. He was selected as one of 8 global judges for EDF’s innovation contest (EDF is the world’s biggest electricity producer based in France)

He completed a post-graduate fellowship with the Coro Foundation. He received his MPA in Telecom and New Media Policy from Columbia University and a BA in English and Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ilan Abehassera   is a second time Entrepreneur based in NYC since 2004. He is now Founder and CEO at Insensi, makers of ILY, a new kind of communication device and platform for Families : www.ily.co . Ilan’s first company, Producteev, one of the leading Task Management platforms for teams, had 2,500 paying companies when it got acquired by Jive Software (Nasdaq listed company) in November 2012, which is when Ilan and his family moved to Palo Alto, where he stayed until the summer of 2014, before moving back to NYC to start Insensi. Ilan is also an angel investor in great companies such as Sunrise (acquired by Microsoft), Wit.ai (acquired by Facebook), Algolia, Checkr.io, OKPanda, Sabi, Campaign, Circa and 15 more. Ilan is a dad of 3, and lives with his wife in Manhattan.

Nikita Desai  (Moderator) is the Director of Policy and Corporate Programs at The Korea Society. While at TKS, she has curated a series of corporate programs highlighting Korean leadership in entrepreneurship and innovation. She was previously a Small-Medium Enterprise Consultant for a project administered in South Africa for women entrepreneurs, funded by the Government of Spain and Femmes Africa Solidarité (FAS). Ms. Desai has consulted for the World Bank on their Global Partnership for Social Accountability for three years. Ms. Desai holds a MBA earned through the Fulbright Scholar program from IE Business School in Spain as well as a MA in International Policy Studies with a focus on Gender and Development from Monterey Institute of International Studies. She served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia from 2003-2005 and speaks Mongolian, Gujarati, Hindi, and Spanish.

Michael Beeman  is currently Senior Advisor to the U.S.-Korea Business Council. From 2013-2014, he was responsible for trade and economic issues with Korea while serving as Acting Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Japan, Korea and APEC Affairs at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). He joined USTR in 2004, where he worked on Japan and other Asia-region trade issues for over a decade. He completed his doctorate in politics in 1998 at the University of Oxford, St. Antony’s College, and has been a research fellow at Harvard University and the University of Tokyo.

Thomas J. Byrne  (Moderator) joined The Korea Society as its President in August of 2015. He came to the Society from Moody’s Investor Services, where he was Regional Manager, Spokesperson, and Director of Analysis for the Sovereign Risk Group in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions. Before moving to Moody’s in 1996, he was the Senior Economist of the Asia Department at the Institute of International Finance in Washington DC. Mr. Byrne has an MA degree in International Relations with an emphasis on economics from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Before his graduate work, he served in South Korea for three years as a US Peace Corps volunteer.

Seung Bak    is the CEO and co-founder of DramaFever, the leading online destination for international television shows and movies. Seung led the company since its inception in 2009, including a sale to SoftBank in 2014 at greater than 10x invested capital.  Prior to founding DramaFever, Seung was Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Capital IQ, a leading provider of information services to the global financial community. Seung served a variety of marketing, sales, strategy, finance, and operational roles in helping Capital IQ grow from a seed stage startup to a $400+ million revenue business. Previously, he was an investment banker at CapitalKey Advisors, the precursor to Capital IQ, where he advised venture-stage and middle-market companies. Seung is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization NYC Chapter. Seung earned a BA in Economics from the University of Rochester.

David Yung Ho Kim  is the Lead Entertainment Attorney at The Hollywood Lawyer in Los Angeles, and practices in the areas of film, television, music, new media, licensing and talent representation. After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley as a Regents’ & Chancellor’s Scholar, with cum laude honors in History, he then moved to study law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (Yeshiva), the nation’s premiere Jewish institution with one of the top-ranked entertainment and IP law programs in the nation, where he served as the school’s first non-Jewish student body president. With an eclectic background of employment and experiences in litigation, copyright law and in-house counsel work as an entertainment attorney for past employers such as the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, CJ Entertainment America, and East West Artists, David now spends most of his time negotiating deals, drafting contracts and advising companies and talent in areas related to media and entertainment. When he’s not working, David loves meditating, doing yoga, playing the piano and loving on people, be it family, friends, or strangers.

Brian Lee  is a Partner at SKIG, a NYC-based accelerator focused on helping early- stage companies scale audience and revenue. Prior to SKIG, Brian was General Manager and Vice President at Maker Studios, the worlds premiere multi-channel network. At Maker Studios, Brian led the Music and Merchandise divisions from conception all the way through to its eventual $500M acquisition to Disney in 2014.  As Head of Music, Brian oversaw all of its departments including, network partnerships, original programming and audience development. His success as GM was rooted in his ability to converge traditional music industry stars such as Snoop Dogg, Will.i.am , and Far East Movement with up and coming YouTube talent such as Christina Grimmie, Mike Tompkins, and the Epic Rap Battles of History.  Prior to his role at Maker Studios, he was founder and CEO of Knocksteady, a digital content and social merchandising company based in Los Angeles. Knocksteady served as the precursor to both Maker Music and Shop.Maker.Tv and was acquired by Maker Studios in 2012. Brian earned a Bachelors of Arts in both Political Science and International Relations from the University of California Irvine.

Of Interest:

Warner Bros. to Acquire Korean Soap Opera Site DramaFever