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Leadership Development & Education

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Leadership Development & Education — The Korea Society
The Korea Society · Leadership Development & Education

Leadership Development and Education

Anchored by three flagship programs, this work delivers bidirectional training — equipping American leaders to advocate for the bilateral partnership and empowering Korean executives and firms to become effective community partners where they operate.

By 2031, this nationwide network will span business, policy, and civic sectors.

About Programs Curriculum
About the Department

Anchored by leadership development and education programs, this work delivers bidirectional training across the U.S.–Korea relationship.

The Cross-Cultural Leadership Initiative, the U.S.–Korea Leadership Exchange Program, and Emerging Leaders Mentorship and Training together equip leaders on both sides of the partnership.

American leaders gain the tools to advocate for the bilateral partnership, while Korean executives and firms are empowered to become effective community partners where they operate.

By 2031, this nationwide network will span business, policy, and civic sectors.

Explore

Three flagship programs.

Each builds leadership capacity across the U.S.–Korea relationship — from language and culture to exchange and mentorship.

01

Flagship Program

Cross-Cultural Leadership Initiative

Language and cultural programs that equip leaders to operate effectively across the U.S. and Korea.

02

Flagship Program

U.S.–Korea Leadership Exchange Program

Bidirectional exchange that prepares American leaders to advocate for the partnership and Korean executives to become effective community partners.

03

Flagship Program

Emerging Leaders Mentorship and Training

Mentorship and training that cultivate the next generation of leaders across business, policy, and civic sectors.

Curriculum & Engagement

How participants engage.

A practical curriculum blends history, values, politics, business practices, language, and societal traditions — cultivating essential skills in negotiation, team management, and trust-building.

Executive Education

Advanced programs for leaders steering the bilateral relationship.

Cross-Cultural Workshops

Practical sessions bridging U.S. and Korean professional norms.

Leadership Development

Training in negotiation, team management, and trust-building.

Language & Cultural Programs

Language and cultural fluency for effective engagement.

Community Involvement

Engagement within communities of increasing Korean presence.

Our Vision

By 2031, this nationwide network will span business, policy, and civic sectors — advancing the bilateral partnership through leaders equipped to build trust across borders.

Browse by Program

Explore the three programs.

01Cross-Cultural Leadership Initiative 02U.S.–Korea Leadership Exchange Program 03Emerging Leaders Mentorship and Training

Digital Initiatives

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Watch & Listen — The Korea Society

Digital Initiatives

Every program we record — talks, author conversations, policy briefings, and cultural events.

Subscribe @TheKoreaSociety · youtube.com/TheKoreaSociety
The Korea Society Podcast

Programs you can take anywhere.

Selected talks and briefings are released in audio. Subscribe on your platform of choice and never miss an episode.

New series Korea Expert Desk — a video interview series delivering sharp insight for decision-makers. Premiere: South Korea’s New Industrial Defense Strategy.
Apple Podcasts Spotify RSS Feed YouTube Vimeo
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Business & Economics

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Business & Economics — The Korea Society
The Korea Society · Business & Economics

Business & Economics

Two economies. One engine of innovation.

The premier nonpartisan forum for U.S.–Korea economic engagement. As a new generation of investment and innovation moves between our two countries, we convene the policymakers, executives, investors, and founders turning partnership into prosperity for both.

About Initiatives Impact
About the Department

Partnership is the strategy. Innovation is the result.

The Korea Society was founded to strengthen the ties between the American and Korean people. Our Business & Economics programs carry that mission into the boardroom, the capital markets, and the innovation economy — where the alliance is now being built as much as it is defended.

This is the most consequential moment in the economic relationship in a generation. Under the U.S.–Korea strategic trade and investment framework, Korea has committed $350 billion to American industry, including $150 billion directed at revitalizing U.S. shipbuilding. The remaining commitment reaches into semiconductors and artificial intelligence, batteries and critical minerals, energy and biotechnology — the sectors that will determine both nations' competitiveness for decades.

These are not transactions. They are shipyards, fabs, plants, laboratories, and supply chains taking root in American communities from the Gulf Coast to the Midwest, built by companies that will hire American workers, train American engineers, and partner with American firms. And the exchange runs both ways: American capital, technology, research, and market access make Korean industry stronger in turn.

Two allies, each better off because of the other. That is the story our programs convene around.

Explore

Four flagship initiatives.

Each convenes a distinct community — policymakers and corporate executives, investors and entrepreneurs, academics and financial leaders. We hold conversations off the record when candor requires it, and on the record when the discussion belongs to the public.

01

Flagship Initiative

U.S.–ROK New Economic Paradigm

Our flagship policy and industry convening. Each program brings thought leaders and decision-makers together to examine the forces reshaping both economies — trade and industrial policy, the $350 billion investment framework, and the strategic industries at its center, from semiconductors and AI to shipbuilding, energy, and critical minerals. The emphasis is practical: where the opportunities are, what the obstacles are, and how both countries move forward together.

Convenes senior policymakers, corporate executives, economists, and industry leaders.

02

Flagship Initiative

Startup Scene: Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow

Year-round programming on entrepreneurship and innovation across the U.S. and Korean ecosystems, spanning first-time founders to serial operators. The initiative culminates in an annual conference and a competition that puts emerging entrepreneurs in front of investors and executives who can back them. Two of the world's most inventive economies, one talent network.

Presented in partnership with Hanwha Life. Convenes founders, venture investors, corporate innovation leaders, and student entrepreneurs.

03

Flagship Initiative

Leadership Interview Series

A digital conversation series with the executives, policy leaders, and cultural figures shaping the relationship. Each interview goes beyond the headlines to the experience, judgment, and conviction behind the decisions — on economics, policy, technology, society, and culture.

Convenes a global audience of members, partners, and the public.

04

Flagship Initiative

Global Financial Leaders Forum

An annual conference presented in collaboration with MaeKyung Media Group and the Korea Finance Society, bringing together leading bankers, investors, and financial policymakers to examine global market trends, cross-border capital flows, and the bilateral initiatives shaping financial cooperation. As record investment moves between the two markets, this is the room where the capital side of the partnership is worked out.

Convenes institutional investors, bank and asset management leadership, regulators, and financial policymakers.

Recent Program Highlights

A year of convenings.

Programming spanned flagship forums, closed-door roundtables, and public conversations connecting leaders and innovators from both countries.

3

Flagship forums, each anchored by a keynote and panel discussions

2

Exclusive executive roundtables

6

Fireside chats

2

Lectures

3

Standalone panel discussions

Our Impact

From dialogue to partnership to prosperity.

Innovation, accelerated.

Semiconductors, AI, advanced manufacturing, energy, and biotechnology advance faster when the people building them are in the same room. We put them there.

Investment, understood.

Historic capital is moving between our two countries. Our programs give executives, investors, and policymakers the clarity to deploy it well — and the relationships to deploy it together.

Emerging talent, elevated.

Founders and early-career leaders share the stage with the executives and investors who can open the next door. The next generation of the partnership is in the room, not waiting outside it.

Communities, connected.

Our programs build durable professional networks across the Pacific — relationships that continue long after the room clears, in both countries and across American communities where Korean industry is putting down roots.

The Measure of Our Work

Two nations, each made stronger by what they build with the other.

Browse by Initiative

Explore the four initiatives.

01U.S.–ROK New Economic Paradigm 02Startup Scene: Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow 03Leadership Interview Series 04Global Financial Leaders Forum

Signature Events

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Signature Events — The Korea Society
The Korea Society · Signature Events

Signature Events

Alliances are written by governments. They are sustained by people who know one another.

Once a year in New York, on a fairway in the fall, in a boardroom in Nashville, The Korea Society puts the people who carry the U.S.–Korea relationship in the same room. What happens there is not ceremony. It is infrastructure.

Explore Our Events Become a Partner
Overview

Trust is built in the room, not on paper.

Treaties are negotiated. Trade agreements are signed. But the relationship between the United States and Korea has always run on something no document can create: leaders who trust each other enough to pick up the phone.

For nearly seventy years, The Korea Society has been where that trust is formed. Our signature events convene the people who shape this partnership — executives and ambassadors, artists and scholars, first-generation founders and fourth-generation Americans — and give them reason to know one another before the moment they need to.

We convene across government, business, civil society, academia, generations, sectors, and regions. When the relationship is strong, these gatherings compound it. When the relationship is tested, they are what holds.

The Four Pillars

Four rooms. One relationship.

From a flagship gala to the fairway to America's newest Korea communities, each gathering builds trust in a different register.

01

Signature Event

Van Fleet Award & Annual Gala

The highest honor in the U.S.–Korea relationship, presented in New York each fall.

Named for General James A. Van Fleet, our founder, the Van Fleet Award recognizes the individuals and institutions who have most advanced the partnership between our two nations. Its recipients are heads of state, industry leaders, and cultural figures whose work has changed what the two countries can accomplish together. The Annual Gala that surrounds it is the year's convening moment: an evening where policy, commerce, and culture sit at the same tables, and where the alliance is celebrated in front of the people with the standing to advance it.

Annual Gala, NYC·Van Fleet Awardees·

02

Signature Event

Van Fleet Memorial Golf Tournament

Thirty-five years of conversations that don't happen in conference rooms.

Some relationships are built on a stage. Others are built over five hours, eighteen holes, and no agenda. For more than three decades, our tournament has given American and Korean leaders the rarest thing in a busy calendar: unstructured time together. The result is a quieter kind of diplomacy. Channels open here that are still open years later, when they are needed most.

Golf Tournament·35th Annual Tournament

03

Regional Engagement

Regional Partnerships

The alliance no longer lives only in Washington and Seoul.

Korean investment is reshaping communities in Tennessee, Georgia, and across the American South — places where a Korean corporate presence is new, and where local understanding has not yet caught up with local economic stakes. We go there. We build the relationships with mayors, chambers, universities, and community leaders that turn investment into partnership. That groundwork is not visible on an ordinary day. It is decisive on a difficult one, when a single misunderstanding can put billions of dollars and years of goodwill at risk.

Local Leadership in a Global Context·Partnership Events

04

Community

Membership & Community

Not an audience. A standing network.

Our individual and corporate members are the connective tissue of everything above. They fill the rooms, open the doors, mentor the next generation into the relationship, and sustain the programming that runs all year long. Membership is how a one-night connection becomes a decade-long collaboration — and how the alliance passes from the generation that built it to the generation that will carry it.

Membership Events·Individual Membership·Corporate Membership

Our Charge

Institutions keep the alliance official. People keep it alive. Our charge is to make sure they know each other before the moment they need to.

The Korea Society · New York · Est. 1957

Get Involved

Take your seat at the table.

Our signature events are made possible by members, sponsors, and partners who understand that the U.S.–Korea relationship is too consequential to leave to chance.

Become a Member Explore Sponsorship Contact Our Team

Geopolitical Affairs

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Geopolitical Affairs — The Korea Society
The Korea Society · Geopolitical Affairs

Geopolitical Affairs

A go-to platform and hub for timely, credible policy insights on the critical issues shaping the U.S.-Korea relationship, South Korea, the Korean Peninsula, and the Indo-Pacific.

We build and empower communities of practitioners — connecting thought leaders and stakeholders from policy, industry, academia, media, and civil society.

About Program Areas
About the Department

The Korea Society's Geopolitical Affairs Department cultivates dialogue and action on pivotal developments affecting the U.S.-Korea relationship.

We serve as a trusted platform and hub for timely, credible policy insights, empowering our audiences and participants to better understand the crucial security, diplomacy, political, and geoeconomic issues shaping the U.S.-Korea relationship, the Korean Peninsula, and the Indo-Pacific.

We inform both general audiences and decision-makers, equipping the U.S. and Korea to navigate uncertainty, reduce risk, and seize on new synergies.

We build and empower communities of practitioners by hosting programs, building networks, offering perspectives, and providing engagement opportunities for diverse U.S. and Korean stakeholders from policy, industry, academia, media, and civil society organizations.

We convene thought leaders and policymakers for discussions, balancing rapid-response content with deeper examinations of Korea's historical, political, and societal dynamics.

Explore

Four pillars of our work.

Each organizes our programming across the relationship, the region, the peninsula, and the next generation of leaders.

01
02

Program Pillar

South Korea and Regional Relations

03
04
Our Charge

We inform both general audiences and decision-makers — equipping the U.S. and Korea to navigate uncertainty, reduce risk, and seize on new synergies.

Browse by Focus

Explore the four categories.

01U.S.-Korea Relations 02South Korea & Regional Relations 03Korean Peninsula 04Empowering Leaders

The Evolution of the North Korea-Iran Missile Cooperation Network

Posted on by WDM Team

2026/8/19

Korea Society policy director Jonathan Corrado was quoted in a VOA article about North Korea-Iran cooperation. Corrado said, “A significant shift over the past few years is reshaping the nature of this relationship. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has opened the door to an unprecedented level of military industrial cooperation with North Korea and Iran that goes far beyond simple transfers. Over time, this cooperation has expanded into complex military industrial production networks linking the CRINK (China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea) partners. North Korea’s arms transfers should not be viewed merely as bilateral transactions, but as active participation in the illicit CRINK military production network. What is being exchanged includes not only weapons but also knowledge, personnel, dual-use materials, and production support.”

Arts & Culture

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Arts & Culture — The Korea Society
The Korea Society · Arts & Culture

Arts & Culture

The Arts & Culture department is dedicated to promoting the excellence and diversity of Korean and Korean-American professionals across the cultural landscape — from artists and performers to authors and scholars.

Through a wide array of exhibitions and programs, we spotlight the richness of Korean culture and its heritage in the contemporary world: fine arts, literature, popular entertainment, culinary traditions, and more.

About Program Areas Watch on YouTube
About the Department

As global interest in Korean culture grows exponentially, the Arts & Culture department remains committed to supporting artists and creators across media.

Our gallery and event space in New York City serves as a vital hub in the world's cultural capital — attracting diverse visitors and providing a venue for artists and creators to engage directly with American audiences.

Our YouTube channel provides live webcasts and pre-recorded programs that promote recent activities and developments, while remaining an enduring resource for anyone interested in Korean arts and culture.

Explore

Program areas.

Six areas spanning the visual arts, literature, cuisine, media, and the performing arts.

01

Program Area

Art & Artist

02

Program Area

Contemporary Korea

03

Program Area

Cuisine

04

Program Area

Literature

05

Program Area

Media & Performing Arts

06

Program Area

Y. T. Hwang Family Foundation Series

Our Commitment

Spotlighting the richness of Korean culture and its heritage in the contemporary world — in fine arts, literature, popular entertainment, culinary traditions, and more.

Digital

Watch on YouTube.

Live webcasts and pre-recorded programs — an enduring resource for anyone interested in Korean arts and culture.

Visit our channel →

The Korea Society policy director Jonathan Corrado
featured in CBC Interview

Posted on by WDM Team

8/17/2026

Korea Society policy director Jonathan Corrado was featured in a recent CBC Interview about US President Donald Trump’s decision to halt military exercises and offer an olive branch to North Korea.

The Korea Society Hosts Inaugural Kim Koo Leadership Development Seminar 

Posted on by WDM Team

On August 14, The Korea Society hosted the inaugural Kim Koo Leadership Development Seminar. In an exclusive program led by world-class instructors, 18 distinguished professionals from corporate, finance, policy, academics, and civil society gathered for training modules on strategic communications, networking, and artificial intelligence. This was a tremendous day of leadership training and community building in NYC for leaders who are actively working and shaping the U.S. Korea alliance. 

Over three sessions, the seminar equipped Fellows with the professional tools, network, and public-spirited vision needed to drive positive change in the U.S.-Korea relationship:

Session 1: Communication, Networking, and Leadership

➤ As a professional, how can you work to refine your leadership style and develop effective cross-cultural communication? This session engaged participants in experiential training targeting increasingly essential day-to-day skills while cultivating impactful networking strategies.

➤ Led by Stuart Luth, Consultant & Coach at Templar Advisors with more than two decades of executive advisory experience following a career on Wall Street managing relations with Fortune 500 corporate clients.

Session 2: Leadership Dialogue over Lunch

➤ In this interactive lunch session, Fellows explored how leaders can leverage cross-sector knowledge-sharing and strategic collaboration to navigate pivotal issues defining the future of U.S.-Korea relations.

➤ Facilitated by Dr. Abraham Kim, President & CEO of The Korea Society, and Ambassador (Ret.) Philip Goldberg, former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea (2022–2025).

Session 3: Harnessing and Managing Artificial Intelligence

➤ How can we understand and leverage agentic artificial intelligence to our advantage? This closing session provided Fellows with the practical tools needed to inform management practices and strengthen executive-level decision-making across tactical, strategic, and future-facing perspectives.

➤ Led by Dr. Ilan Lobel, multi-award-winning Professor of Technology, Operations and Statistics at NYU Stern School of Business, Director of Stern’s Technology and Entrepreneurship MBA Program, and frequent AI consultant for Fortune 100 executives.

A special thank you to the Kim Koo Foundation, whose generous support made this seminar possible. Thank you also to our speakers and Fellows for making this inaugural program a success. We look forward to empowering a lasting coalition of visionary leaders.

Northeast Asia Situation Report: NYC Salon Readout

Posted on by WDM Team

A group of policy professionals from academia, industry, finance, civil society, and the United Nations gathered in New York City for The Northeast Asia Situation Report, a salon-style discussion focused on the complex intersection of PRC-U.S.-Taiwan, U.S.-ROK-PRC, and Japan–ROK relations.

The session was co-hosted by The Korea Society’s Jonathan Corrado and Chelsie Alexandre, Temple University Japan’s Robert Dujarric, and Park Strategies’ Sean King.  

The discussion analyzed how regional actors are navigating an increasingly fraught geopolitical competition, forecast trends and trajectories, and generated consensus around near-future challenges and opportunities.