THE KOREA SOCIETY

Welcoming Remarks 

Emcee Welcome - Jonathan Corrado, Korea Society Policy Director

President’s Greeting - Tom Byrne, Korea Society President & CEO 

Board Chair Greeting - Ambassador (Ret.) Kathleen Stephens, Korea Society Board Chair 

Partner Greeting - Markus Garlauskas, Director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Diplomacy Panel 

Moderator: Ambassador (Ret.) Kathleen Stephens, Korea Society Board Chair

Ambassador (Ret.) Kim Hyoung-zhin, Former Ambassador to the European Union and Deputy National Security Advisor

Ambassador (Ret.) Philip Goldberg, Former US Ambassador to the Republic of Korea

Geoeconomics Panel 

Moderator: Tom Byrne, Korea Society President & CEO 

Yoo Myung-hee, Former Republic of Korea Trade Minister

Dr. Nadia Schadlow, Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute and Former US Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy

Kimberly Donovan, Director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center

Security Panel - Deterring and Defending in a Regional Conflict 

Primer on Multilateral Command and Control, Planning, and Exercises - David Maxwell, Vice President of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and former U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel

Moderator: General (Ret.) Walter Sharp, Korea Society Board Vice Chair

Dr. Shin Beomchul, Senior Research Fellow at the Sejong Institute and former Republic of Korea Vice Minister of National Defense

General (Ret.) Paul LaCamera, former Commander of U.S. Forces Korea, Combined Forces Command, and United Nations Command

Markus Garlauskas, Director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

History Panel - The Forging of an Alliance 

Moderator: Jonathan Corrado, Korea Society Policy Director

Dr. Kathryn Weathersby, Adjunct Professor of Asian Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University 

Dr. David Fields, Associate Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison

Keynote Remarks 

U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts - Video Remarks

Dr. Mee Kim is a distinguished Korean philanthropist and civic leader. She currently serves as Chairperson of the Kim Koo Foundation, established to honor the legacy of her grandfather, Kim Koo—one of Korea’s most revered independence leaders. The Foundation advances educational and cultural initiatives both in Korea and internationally, continuing Kim Koo’s lifelong commitment to public service and national identity. Dr. Kim has dedicated her career to advocating for social equity and civic engagement. Her work spans a range of critical issues, including women’s rights, child welfare, healthcare access, education, the arts, and civil diplomacy. She previously served as Chairperson of Women’s News, a leading Korean newspaper focused on women’s issues and social justice. She also holds board positions at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, Midwest Young Artists, and Lake Forest Academy, where she is a Life Trustee. Dr. Kim is the granddaughter of Kim Koo, Premier of the Korean Provisional Government (KPG) and a central figure in Korea’s independence movement. She is also the daughter of General Shin Kim, a pioneering military leader and public servant. Dr. Kim is married to Ho Youn Kim, Chairman of Binggrae Co., Ltd., a leading Korean food and beverage company best known for Banana Flavored Milk and Melona.

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.

Kimberly Donovan is the director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. Prior to joining the Council, Donovan served in the federal government for fifteen years, most recently as the acting associate director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s (FinCEN) Intelligence Division and FinCEN’s chief of staff and senior advisor to the director. Donovan holds extensive expertise in anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism, the Bank Secrecy Act, US national security, Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions programs, and FinCEN regulatory actions. Prior to joining FinCEN, Donovan served a tour on the White House National Security Council as a director for counterterrorism and served in Treasury’s Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes as a senior policy advisor and acting director of the Middle East and North Africa. Before joining Treasury, Donovan worked in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence/National Counterterrorism Center and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Donovan holds a master of arts in international peace and conflict resolution from the School of International Service at American University and a bachelor of arts in political science from the University of Vermont. She resides in Northern Virginia with her family.

Dr. David Fields is Associate Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison. He earned his PhD in history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, specializing in US-Korean relations. He is the author of Foreign Friends: Syngman Rhee, American Exceptionalism, and the Division of Korea and the editor of The Diary of Syngman Rhee, 1904–34, 1944,  published by the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History. Since 2015, he has been the book review editor of the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. He has been published in the Washington Post, North Korea Review, Journal of American-East Asian Relations, SinoNK.com, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society-Korea Branch, and in the Working Papers Series of the Cold War International History Project. His research and analysis has been featured on National Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Radio, C-SPAN, and CNN.

Markus Garlauskas is the director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He leads this initiative’s efforts focused on conflict and nuclear deterrence, United States strategy, and building cooperation with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region. He led projects focused on deterrence and defense issues in East Asia as a nonresident senior fellow from August 2020 until assuming his duties as director in January 2023. Garlauskas served in the US government for nearly twenty years. He was appointed to the Senior National Intelligence Service as the National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for North Korea on the National Intelligence Council from July 2014 to June 2020. As NIO, he led the US intelligence community’s strategic analysis on North Korea issues and expanded analytic outreach to non-government experts. He also provided direct analytic support to top-level policy deliberations, including the presidential transition, as well as the Singapore and Hanoi summits with North Korea. Garlauskas served for nearly twelve years overseas at the headquarters of United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command and US Forces Korea in Seoul. His staff assignments there included chief of the Intelligence Estimates Branch and director of the Strategy Division. For his service in Korea, he received the Joint Civilian Distinguished Service Award, the highest civilian award from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Garlauskas holds a BA in History from Kent State University. He earned a Master’s Degree from Georgetown University’s Security Studies graduate program, where he is now an adjunct professor.

Philip S Goldberg served as US Ambassador to the Republic of Korea 2022-2025. He served as US Ambassador to Colombia. In 2018, Goldberg served as Charge d’affaires at the US Embassy in Havana, Cuba, followed by a year as a Diplomat in Residence at Georgetown University. From 2013-2016, Amb Goldberg served as US Ambassador to the Philippines. Prior to that assignment, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2010-2013); US Ambassador to Bolivia (2006-2008); Chief of Mission in Pristina, Kosovo (2004-2006); and Charge d’affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission in Santiago, Chile (2001-2004). From 2009-2010, Goldberg was coordinator for the implementation of UN sanctions on North Korea. His other overseas tours included Bogota, Colombia, where he served as the Plan Colombia coordinator, and Pretoria, South Africa. Amb Goldberg was a senior member of the State Department team handling the transition from the Clinton to Bush administrations and served as acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs (2000-2001) and Special Assistant and Executive Assistant to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott (1996-2000). As the Bosnia Desk Officer and Special Assistant to Amb Richard Holbrooke (1994-1996), Goldberg was a member of the American negotiating team in the lead-up to the Dayton Peace Conference and Chief of Staff for the American delegation at Dayton. Amb Goldberg holds the personal rank of Career Ambassador, the highest rank in the US Foreign Service. He has received numerous awards, including Presidential Distinguished and Meritorious Service Awards; the Department’s Distinguished Honor Award and the Silver Seal Medallion for Meritorious Service in the US Intelligence Community. Amb. Goldberg is a native of Boston, Massachusetts, and a graduate of Boston University. Before joining the Foreign Service, he served as a liaison officer between the government of the City of New York and the United Nations and Consular Community.

Kim Hyoung-zhin is a Visiting Researcher at the Institute for Future Strategy of Seoul National University and a Senior Policy Advisor at the Korea Institute of Nuclear Nonproliferation and Control (KINAC). Mr. Kim retired from the South Korean government in May 2022 after working more than 38 years. His last post was Deputy National Security Advisor to the President. He was ambassador to the European Union and NATO as well as Belgium and Luxembourg from January 2017 to December 2019. His overseas assignments were Washington, D.C. twice, Accra, Beijing, and Brussels. Ambassador Kim majored in economics at Seoul National University and received a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton University. He finished a PhD course at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo. He was a visiting fellow at the University of Tokyo in 2012-2013 and has been an Adjunct Researcher at Waseda University since 2023. He gave lectures at various universities and wrote articles in ‘Korea On Point,’ ‘European Foreign Affairs Review,’ and others. His recent book published in June 2025 is Why Is the EU Not Prominently Visible in Korea’s Diplomacy?

General (Retired) Paul LaCamera retired from the U.S. Army after almost 40 years of commissioned service. Commissioned in the infantry after graduating from the US Military Academy in 1985, he culminated his service as the Commander of U.S. Forces Korea, Combined Forces Command, and United Nations Command. He has had the honor of leading and serving in every type of Infantry unit with members of all the U.S military services (SOF and Conventional), inter-agency colleagues, and coalition allies and partners from rifle platoon leader through Sub-Unified Commander and multiple Combined Joint Task Forces.

David Maxwell is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel who has spent more than 30 years in the Asia Pacific region (primarily Korea, Japan, and the Philippines) as a practitioner, specializing in Northeast Asian Security Affairs and irregular, unconventional, and political warfare. He is the Vice President of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy. He commanded the Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines during the war on terrorism and is the former J5 and Chief of Staff of the Special Operations Command Korea, and G3 of the US Army Special Operations Command. Following retirement, he was the Associate Director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. He is a member of the board of directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the OSS Society, on the board of advisers of Spirit of America, and is a contributing editor to Small Wars Journal.

U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts was sworn in as Nebraska’s U.S. Senator on January 23, 2023. Born in Nebraska City and raised in Omaha, Senator Pete Ricketts is the son of an entrepreneur and a school teacher. Pete and his wife, Susanne Shore, have been married for 26 years and live in Omaha. They have three children: Roscoe, Margot, and Eleanor. Pete graduated from Westside High School before attending the University of Chicago where he earned his bachelor’s degree in biology and an M.B.A. in marketing and finance. After graduate school, Pete returned to Omaha and worked for Union Pacific before working as a customer services representative in his family’s business, a company that would eventually become known as Ameritrade. He went on to hold leadership roles in the company including Senior Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, Senior Vice President of Product Development, Senior Vice President of Marketing, President, and Chief Operating Officer (COO). Pete also founded Drakon, LLC, which supports Nebraska entrepreneurs and startup companies, and was a past board member of TD Ameritrade’s Board of Directors and the Chicago Cubs baseball team. Pete was sworn in as Nebraska’s 40th Governor on January 8, 2015 and reelected to a second term in November 2018. As governor, Pete dramatically improved services to Nebraskans, and worked with the Legislature to deliver over $12.7 billion in tax relief, including over $10 billion in property tax relief, by 2027. Additionally, he fully eliminated state taxes on veterans’ retirement income starting in 2022 and on Social Security benefits by 2025. Pete cut the growth of state spending by more than half and held state budgets to an average of 2.8% growth annually. He created new workforce development programming and cut unnecessary red tape to bolster Nebraska’s business-friendly climate. Additionally, he expanded international markets for Nebraska’s farmers and ranchers. Thanks in part to the Governor’s leadership, Nebraska won the Governor’s Cup for the most economic development projects per capita three years in a row from 2016 to 2018. He was also appointed to serve on the Council of Governors and the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations by President Donald J. Trump. Pete has also taken on leadership roles in local and state associations and organizations. He serves on the board of the Mid-America Council of the Boy Scouts, as a director of the Nebraska Game and Parks Foundation, a member of the Board of Advisors of Opportunity Education Foundation, a member of the Archbishop’s Committee for Development, a member of the Knights of Columbus, and a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre. Pete and his family attend St. Margaret Mary’s church.

Dr. Nadia Schadlow is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and a co-chair of the Hamilton Commission on Securing America’s National Security Innovation Base. She conducts research and analysis on a range of issues at the intersection of strategy, national security, and technology. She writes on topics that include the vulnerabilities of US supply chains in areas such as advanced batteries and energetic materials; the relationship between climate and defense policy; and the disconnects between strategy and operational policies. Her articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Hill, Parameters, the Wall Street Journal, Philanthropy, and several edited volumes. Dr. Schadlow was most recently US deputy national security advisor for strategy. In that capacity she led the drafting and publication of the 2017 National Security Strategy of the United States. Earlier in her career, she served as a senior program officer in the International Security and Foreign Policy Program of the Smith Richardson Foundation, where she helped identify strategic issues that warranted further attention from the US policy community. She also served in the Defense Department. Dr. Schadlow holds a BA in government and Soviet studies from Cornell University and an MA and PhD from the John Hopkins Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

General Walter “Skip” Sharp was born in Morgantown, West Virginia while his father was fighting in the Korean War. General Sharp graduated from West Point in 1974 and was commissioned as an armor officer. He earned an M.S. in operations research and system analysis from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and is a graduate of the Army War College. General Sharp commanded the United Nations Command, Republic of Korea-United States Combined Forces Command and United States Forces Korea from 2008 to 2011. He also commanded troops in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti and the Multinational Division (North) of the NATO-led Stabilization Force in Bosnia. General and Mrs. Sharp live in Alexandria, VA. He is a Director on The Korea Society BOD and former Chairman of BOD for the Military Officers Association of America. He is also on the BOD for ARTIS, LLC and consults for several U.S. companies focused on supporting our military and veterans. General Sharp is also involved in Northeast Asia and Korea strategy and policy discussions at several Washington, D.C. area Think Tanks.

Dr. Shin Beomchul is a senior research fellow at the Sejong Institute. He is the former Vice Minister of National Defense. Previously, he served as a senior research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies and a tenured professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy. He was the Director General for Policy Planning at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Before he joined the Ministry, he was the Head of the North Korean Military Studies Research Division at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. Dr. Shin has published many articles on the ROK-US alliance, inter-Korean relations, and Northeast Asian politics and security. Dr. Shin received his B.A. from Chungnam National University and did his graduate studies at Seoul National University, School of Law. He majored in international law and received his doctor degree (S.J.D.) from Georgetown University Law Center in 2007.

Ambassador (ret) Kathleen Stephens was a career diplomat in the United States Foreign Service, 1978-2015. She was U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea 2008-2011, the first woman and first Korean-speaker in that position. Other overseas assignments included postings to Trinidad and Tobago, China, Korea, former Yugoslavia, Portugal, Northern Ireland, where she was U.S. Consul General in Belfast during the negotiations culminating in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, and India, where she was U.S. Chargé d'affaires (2014-2015). Ambassador Stephens served in a number of policy positions in Washington at the Department of State and the White House. These included acting Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (2012), Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (2005-2007), Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (2003-2005), and National Security Council Director for European Affairs at the Clinton White House. Ambassador Stephens was William J. Perry Fellow for Korea at Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center, 2015-2018. She served as President and CEO of the Korea Economic Institute of American (KEIA) from 2018 to 2023. She is board chair of The Korea Society and board vice-chair of The Asia Foundation. Ambassador Stephens studied at Prescott College, University of Hong Kong and Oxford University, and holds a BA Honors from Prescott. She holds a Master’s degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School. In the 1970s, she was a Peace Corps volunteer in Korea.

Dr. Kathryn Weathersby is Adjunct Professor of Asian Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. A specialist on the Korean War and the history of North Korea, she previously taught in the Department of History of Korea University, Seoul, and at the US-Korea Institute of the School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University, in Washington, DC. In the 1990s she conducted pioneering research in Russian archives on the establishment of the DPRK and the Korean War and has written and lectured widely on these subjects. In 2014 the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs of the Republic of Korea honored her work by awarding her the Medal of Civilian Merit.

Yoo Myung-hee served as Trade Minister of the Republic of Korea (2019-2021), dedicating nearly three decades of public service to shaping Korea’s trade policy and leading international negotiations. As Korea’s chief negotiator, she led major bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations, including the Korea- U.S. FTA amendment negotiations and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP). During her term as trade minister, she contributed to international initiatives to ensure supply chain resilience and to address digital trade policy. Previously, she served as Deputy Minister for Trade Negotiations and Director General for Trade Policy at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, as well as Spokesperson for Foreign Media at the Office of the President. She received her BA and MPA from Seoul National University and JD from Vanderbilt University Law School, and currently teaches at the Graduate School of International Studies of Seoul National University.

Jonathan Corrado is the director of policy for The Korea Society, where he produces programming and conducts research on a range of security, diplomatic, and socioeconomic issues impacting the US-Korea Alliance, the Korean Peninsula, and Northeast Asia. He is also a nonresident senior fellow in the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a lecturer at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University. Corrado is a member of the National Committee on North Korea and was previously a nonresident James A. Kelly fellow at Pacific Forum, an emerging leader at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP), and a contributor to NK Pro. He has published peer-reviewed articles in the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, the Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, the Journal of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, and Asian Politics & Policy. He has also published essays and commentary in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, War on the Rocks, 38 North, the Diplomat, the Japan Times, the National Interest, Yahoo News, Pacific Forum, NK News, and NK Pro. Corrado received an MA from Georgetown University’s Asian studies program in the Walsh School of Foreign Service and a BA in anthropology and philosophy from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Chelsie Alexandre is the Policy Program Officer at The Korea Society. She works with the Director of Policy to develop and implement events that address issues shaping the dynamics of U.S.-ROK relations, the Korean peninsula, and Northeast Asia. Before joining The Korea Society, Chelsie received a Fulbright Research award to conduct research in South Korea on the role of middle power countries in the Korean peace process with Korea University’s Peace and Democracy Institute. During her time in Seoul, she also briefly reported on domestic Korean affairs for The Diplomat. Prior to her current role, Chelsie was a Partnerships Coordinator at the New York City-based nonprofit, The Concordia Summit, and she worked as a Legal Analyst at the global law firm Kobre & Kim. Chelsie also had previous experience as a research Intern at The Korea Society. She graduated with a B.A. in Politics from Princeton University, with minors in East Asian Studies and Diplomacy.