Category: Business & Economics

Registration starts at 11:30 am with networking lunch. 

Opening Session 

Michael Burke, COO, International Franchise Management, Citi

Thomas Byrne, CEO and President of The Korea Society 

Dr. Jinwoo Hwang, Senior Executive VP, Hanwha Life Insurance

A Fireside Keynote

Dr. Songyee Yoon, Managing Partner, Principal Venture Partners 

Moderated by Sandor Hau, Managing Director and President, Charlesbank Credit.

Session 1 – Korean Startups on the Global Stage: Insights from the Investors

Murat Aktihanoglu, Managing Partner, ERA 

Richard Diamond, Managing Director, Global Head of FinTech and Information Services, Citi Bank 

MyeongSeon Kim, Head of NYC office, Korea Venture Investor Corporation 

David Lee, Head of NBA Investments and Senior Vice President, National Basketball Association (NBA)

Session 2– Synergy in Innovation: Corporates and Startup in Collaboration

Ran Wei Baker, Sr. Director, Global Head of Marketing, Microsoft 

TaeSoo Sean Kim, Partner, IceMiller

Drew Propson, Head of Technology and Innovation in Financial Services, World Economic Forum

Session 3 – Navigating NYC’s Thriving Startup Ecosystem

Holly Diamond, Co-Founder and CEO of WorkOnWard 

David Joo, Co-founder of Neuroaide and former CO-CEO and Co-Founder of Knowre

Kaila Lim, Head of Community and Founder Experience, Antler

Startups in Focus- Meet the Founder Sessions 

Jinha Lee, Co-Founder and CEO of Spatial 

Jae Pil Park, Founder and CEO of Nara Space 

Keith Ryu, Co-Founder and Board Member, and Former CEO of Fountain

Keynote Speaker

Songyee Yoon, Founder and Managing Director of Principal Venture Partners
Songyee is the founder and managing director of Principal Venture Partners, a venture capital firm investing in AI-native companies. She served on South Korea’s Presidential Advisory Council for Science and Technology under two presidents. She is a member of the MIT Corporation and serves on the board of trustees for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and HP, Inc. Songyee’s book, Push Play, explores the significance of play in innovation.

Moderated by

Sandor Hau, Managing Director and President, Charlesbank Credit
Sandor Hau is a Managing Director and President of Charlesbank Credit. He oversees the firm’s opportunistic Credit team and investing strategy. Sandor joined Charlesbank in 2016 from Nomura Securities, where he was a Managing Director and Head of Corporate Credit and Special Situations. Previously, he was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs and Head of Credit Investing and Private Equity within the principal strategies group.

He is currently a board member for Learfield, a media and technology services company focused on college sports and Interon Labs, a biotechnology company focused on neuro-immunotherapy. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Investment Working Group at Ohio State University.

He is actively involved with the Korean American community as co–chairman of The Korea Finance Society, a member of the Council of Korean Americans and a former board member of the Korean American Family Service Center. He recently received a commendation from the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs for the Republic of Korea for his contribution to Korea-U.S. financial cooperation.

Sandor received a BS in Economics, summa cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and received an MBA from Harvard Business School. He was also a Rotary Scholar at Yonsei University.

Panel Speakers

Murat Aktihanoglu
Murat Aktihanoglu is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Remarkable Ventures, Remarkable Ventures Climate and ERA. A venture capitalist since 2011, Murat has invested in over 350 early-stage tech and climate companies with a combined market cap of $10+ billion. He previously founded Centrl and the nonprofit Entrepreneurs Roundtable, fostering New York’s startup community through monthly investor meetings. Murat co-authored Location-Aware Applications in 2011 and has held engineering roles at Sony and Silicon Graphics. Murat is a sought-after speaker at technology and entrepreneurship conferences worldwide. He serves as a Council Member for the U.S.-Japan Council, a board member for the Belgian American Chamber of Commerce, and an Ambassador for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Additionally, he advises organizations such as the MIT Enterprise Forum and mentors various startup programs globally. He holds an M.S. in Computer Science from Bilkent University.

Ran Wei Baker, Head of Marketing for Microsoft for Startups
Ran Wei Baker is currently the Head of Marketing at Microsoft for Startups, where she works with early-stage founders to build faster, build better, and sell more with Microsoft. Ran leverages her background in Corporate Strategy, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship to launch brands that foster meaningful human connections and deliver impactful business results. Somewhere in between storytelling and consumer understanding, Ran is a wanderlust. She enjoys spontaneous trips, hikes in the mountains, and learning about cultures around the world. Music is her native language, and her favorite brain foods are books.

Holly Diamond, Founder and CEO of WorkOnward
Holly Oh Diamond is a serial entrepreneur and social impact founder passionate about building businesses that drive equity in the workforce. She is the founder of DHD Consulting, a leading recruiting firm specializing in Korean companies, and WorkOnward, an AI-powered hiring platform designed to make job opportunities more accessible for immigrant and women-owned businesses. With a background in social work and over a decade in recruiting, Holly is known for her innovative, people-first approach to solving hiring challenges and supporting economic mobility for underrepresented communities. Her work has been backed by Techstars, Village Capital, and the Robin Hood Foundation. She also owns Mista Oh, a Korean restaurant in Flatiron, NYC, which she opened during the pandemic to support her family.

Richard Diamond – Global Head of Fintech and Information Services, Citi
Richard (Rick) Diamond heads the Global Financial Technology and Information Services investment banking practice and joined Citi in 2017 after 21 years at JPMorgan where he was a senior relationship banker in the Technology Investment Banking Group heading the Global Technology Services effort. Rick’s experience includes mergers and acquisitions, raising public equity through IPOs and secondary offerings, raising private equity for public and private companies, raising high-yield debt, loan and bank syndication and convertible equity financings. Rick received a B.A. in history from Wake Forest University and an M.B.A. from the Columbia Business School. Rick lives in Ridgewood, NJ with his wife Jennie and their two children Millie and Richard.

David Joo, Co-founder of neuroaide and former Co-CEO and Co-founder of Knowre
David Joo is an entrepreneur, investor, and advisor dedicated to supporting companies and products that drive positive societal impact.

He is currently the co-founder of neuroaide, an AI-powered writing assistant designed specifically for neuropsychological and psychoeducational evaluators. Neuropsychologists diagnosis cognitive, mental health, and learning conditions, such as ADHD, Dyslexia, Autism, and Anxiety, and produce comprehensive reports necessary to secure accommodations from schools and other institutions. Due to the intensive nature of writing these reports, evaluations often face significant delays, with wait times in many parts of the country averaging six months. neuroaide directly addresses this bottleneck, reducing the time required to produce these reports by half.

Previously, David was a co-founder and co-CEO of Knowre, an education technology company providing personalized math learning to students worldwide. Founded in 2012, Knowre experienced significant growth before being acquired in 2018 by Daekyo, a publicly listed education company based in South Korea.

Before his entrepreneurial ventures, David worked across a variety of investment banking roles, including capital markets, leveraged finance, and M&A. He also engaged in public market investments, focusing on distressed debt and capital structure arbitrage strategies. David currently serves on the board of Korean Startups & Entrepreneurs, a nonprofit dedicated to fostering and advancing the tech startup ecosystem for Korean and Korean-American founders in the United States.

MyeongSeon Kim, Head of NYC office, Korea Venture Investor Corporation
MyeongSeon Kim is the Head of the New York Office at Korea Venture Investment Corp. (KVIC), a sovereign fund committed to strengthening South Korea’s startup ecosystem and expanding its global footprint by backing high-potential venture capital and private equity funds. Prior to his role in New York, he led KVIC’s Silicon Valley Office, where he played a key role in connecting Korean startups with the U.S. innovation ecosystem—building on his earlier position as Global Investment Team Leader, where he oversaw cross-border fund investments and fostered international VC partnerships.

With nearly two decades of experience across venture capital, asset management, and insurance investment, he brings a global perspective and strong financial expertise to KVIC. He holds an Executive MBA from Aalto University and a Bachelor of Laws from Ajou University.

Sean Taesoo Kim, Partner, IceMiller
TaeSoo Sean Kim is a partner in Ice Miller’s Business Group and co-chair of the firm’s Asia-Pacific Practice Group. Sean represents biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and technology companies in commercial transactions, licensing, mergers and acquisitions, and other strategic business matters.

With a focus in emerging technologies, Sean negotiates complex technology licenses, collaboration agreements, and commercial contracts across fields such as drug discovery, small molecules, cell and gene therapies, artificial intelligence (AI), cryptography, lithium batteries, and other innovative technologies. As a registered patent attorney with a focus on business transactions, he provides strategic guidance on intellectual property (IP) development, IP portfolio management, and IP commercialization to both startups and established companies.

In his role as co-chair of the Asia-Pacific Practice Group, Sean serves as a relationship partner to Asia-based clients in cross-border transactions and disputes, including M&A, joint ventures, commercial agreements, and IP matters. He also leads efforts on large-scale economic development projects, such as lithium battery manufacturing and recycling plants, overseeing site selection, incentives, real estate, and regulatory compliance.

Sean is deeply involved in the startup community, having served on the Board of Korean Startups and Entrepreneurs. He currently serves as outside general counsel to startups, guiding them from pre-funding to multiple rounds of venture financing and exit.

David Lee, SVP and Head of NBA Investments
David is SVP and the Head of NBA Investments, the corporate venture arm of the National Basketball Association. David previously co-founded two different startup studios, one as part of SK in the chairman’s office and one with his former boss & Head of Private Equity Group at Bain & Company NY. He also worked at the early stages of Coupang and Nexon, which have since become decacorns. David received his Bachelor’s degree from Yonsei University and his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Jinha Lee, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Spatial
Jinha is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Spatial, an immersive media platform leveraging gaming and AI to reshape how people engage with online commerce, education, and entertainment. With over 3 million experiences built by a global community of more than 15 million creators, Spatial is trusted and used by over 1,000 leading brands. In addition, Spatial is also pioneering VR gaming for Gen Alpha with its original title, Animal Company, which has become the top earning game on the Meta Quest store within just seven months of launch.

Prior to founding Spatial, Jinha pioneered technologies to physically interact with digital data for the past decade. In 2013, Jinha took the stage at TED to present his invention, SpaceTop, a pioneering AR computer that lets you “reach inside” the screen. Jinha was a Principal Designer at Samsung, where he founded the Interactive Visualization Lab and led the redesign of Smart TVs, turning them into an interactive social hub for the living room. He also co-designed the Red Dot Award-winning Bradley, an innovative tactile wristwatch for the blind, which was one of the most successful projects in Kickstarter’s design category in 2013. Jinha was named one of the “35 Innovators Under 35” by the MIT Technology Review, one of the “32 Greatest Living Designers” by Fast Company, and a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum.

Jinha has a Master’s degree in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT (Media Lab) and completed his undergraduate studies with a bachelor’s in Electronic Engineering from the University of Tokyo.

Kaila Lim, Head of Community and Founder Experience, Antler
Kaila is a public speaker and community leader shaping NYC’s tech scene by curating spaces where hyper obsessed early-stage founders build and connect. As Head of Community at Antler VC, she brings together founders for the signature six-week residency. With a background in competitive public speaking, sales training, and founder communities, she instinctively fosters deep relationships and transformative spaces. Passionate about the founder journey and hospitality experience, she’s dedicated to elevating the founders at Antler and supporting those of the founder ecosystem at large. She writes about her life lessons and takes notes on books on kailajlim.com and has lived in NYC, California, and Seoul and now works in NYC, while visiting Seoul for her grandmother each year.

Jae-Pil Park, Co-founder and CEO of Nara Space
Jae-Pil Park is the CEO and founder of Nara Space Technology, a company revolutionizing the small satellite industry with advanced nanosatellite platforms and space-based solutions. Since establishing the company in 2016, he has led the development of cutting-edge satellite technology, positioning Nara Space as a key player in the growing space economy. With a deep understanding of satellite systems and a vision for more accessible and efficient space solutions, Jae-Pil is driving innovation in Earth observation, communication, and beyond. Prior to founding Nara Space, he played a pivotal role in the CubeSat Technical Demonstration Mission CANYVAL-X (2012–2018), a groundbreaking collaboration with NASA. As Project Manager and System Engineer, he spearheaded the development of CubeSat-based astronomical observation technology, demonstrating precision satellite formation flying. His expertise in satellite engineering, mission design, and space commercialization continues to shape the future of next-generation satellite technology.

Drew Propson, Head of Technology and Innovation in Financial Services at the World Economic Forum
Drew Propson is the Head of Technology and Innovation in Financial Services at the World Economic Forum. She leads a portfolio of initiatives focused on advancing innovation while maintaining financial system stability. Current research areas include the deployment of AI and emerging technologies in financial services, technology-driven systemic risks, and fintech market trends. Drew has additionally presented and authored work on financial inclusion, regulatory dynamics, and entrepreneurship.

Drew holds MBAs from Columbia Business School and London Business School, a PhD in Spanish literature from UC Berkeley, and a BFA in Painting from the University of Washington. Her experience prior to joining the Forum includes private equity research, development finance, and international strategy and operations.

Keith Ryu, Co-founder, Chair, and former CEO of Fountain
Keith Ryu is the former co-founder and CEO of Fountain, an HR platform for hourly workers that has raised $225M from investors including Y Combinator, SoftBank, Peter Thiel, B Capital, and Mirae Asset. He remains on Fountain’s board and actively invests in startups, with a passionate focus on cross-border opportunities that bridge Korean technology and culture to U.S. markets. A builder at heart, Keith spends his free time creating new products and businesses, leveraging the latest AI coding tools. Leveraging his global network across San  Francisco, New York, and Seoul, he aims to foster a strong engineering culture within Korea and transition it into a top-tier software and technology exporter.

Opening Speakers

Michael Burke
Michael Burke is the Head of Citi’s International Franchise Management (IFM) team. IFM helps manage Citi’s international franchise by coordinating governance, talent and business connectivity for Citi’s activities in nearly 160 countries and jurisdictions around the world. Michael joined Citi in August 1998 in the finance and strategy department of the Corporate and Investment Bank (CIB). Since then he has worked in a variety of Finance, Strategy and Business Risk / Compliance roles. A former US Navy officer, Mike holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Villanova University and Masters’ degrees from New York University and Harvard University.

Thomas Byrne
Thomas J. Byrne joined The Korea Society as President in August 2015. Since June 2023, he had also taken 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 Investor Services, 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 has an MA in International Relations with a concentration in international economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced international Studies and a BS 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. 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. As president, he has written opinion articles published in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg View, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, The National Interest, and Reuters Breakingviews.

Jinwoo Hwang
Dr. Jinwoo Hwang currently holds the position of Senior Executive Vice President at Hanwha Life Insurance. With over three decades of work experience at Hanwha Group, Dr. Hwang has served in a variety of roles, including Senior Research Fellow, Director of Economic Research, and Director of Economic Analysis. He first joined the Hanwha Economic Research Institute in 1993, then transitioned to Hanwha Securities and Hanwha Life Insurance. Dr. Hwang earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from Yale University and his B.A. in Economics from Seoul National University.