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Hwa Jin Youn, Chairman
Based out of Seoul, Korea, Dr. Youn is responsible for leading all Asian business development and relationship management for Avalon Venture. He has had extensive experience in international and venture capital in Asia through relationships with Premier Capital and Pintoresco Advisors. Prior to Avalon Venture, he was Senior Economist for the Asian Development Bank, where he led over 60 country consultation and economic missions. Additionally, Dr. Youn has served as a member of the Presidential Commission for Financial Reforms for Korean President Young Sam Kim during the IMF crisis, an Executive Advisor to the Chairman of Halla Group, CEO of Sungwon Corporation, and CEO of Sanview Technology, a Silicon Valley-based venture company.
Dr. Youn serves our clients with his extensive network of relationships throughout Korean financial institutions, businesses, and governmental agencies, as well as providing his deep expertise in Asian economic development strategy, foreign trade, financial and monetary policies, IT technology, and venture capital. He earned his M.A. in Economics at Yale University and a Ph.D. at Santo Tomas University.
KW Young, Principal Partner, Asian Infrastructure ProjectsAs the former Executive Vice President for the Korea Overseas Construction Corporation (KOCC), KW oversaw the management, design, and civil engineering of over $2 billion of infrastructure projects in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait, including major highways, high-speed rail, and public housing. KW was formerly the Director General of Public Roads in the Korean Ministry of Transportation, and spent several years at the Asian Development Bank, where his projects included US$40 million in highway construction in Thailand, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea.
Currently, as Chairman of Dongrim Consulting, he heads up all new business development for a diversified engineering consulting firm with expertise in highway and rail engineering, including the implementation of major corridors and ring roads connecting metropolitan Seoul, Inchon Airport, and the surrounding vicinity. Other areas of expertise include light-rail, urban transportation, urban planning, water supply and sewage, and environmental impact assessment.
KW has been a frequent speaker and leader at infrastructure industry associations, including the World Congress of the International Transportation Society, and is on the Board of Directors of the Asia-Pacific committee. He is also President of the Korea Transportation News publication.
James Kim, PrincipalJames has some 30 years of combined international and merchant banking experience in the United States and Asia. He founded Premier Capital in the early 1990s after 23 years of international banking and 10 years of experience in merchant/investment banking. Mr. Kim served as Vice President of corporate banking at Bank of America and Security Pacific Asian Bank. Prior to Security Pacific he served as Vice President and Country/General Manager for Rainier Bank in Seoul. He also served as Advisor to the Western One Bank International Division. He was recently engaged as Consultant to Ferrier Harrison Limited in Hong Kong, a leading corporate turn-around and restructuring company in Asia.
Dr. Eui Ho Kim, Senior AdvisorDr. Kim has a long and distinguished career in public service, including foreign diplomatic positions at the city, provincial, and international level. He is currently serving as Special Economic Advisor to Micronesian heads of state and is also Chairman of the Pacific Resources Development Company. Previously, he served in the Foreign Policy Development committee of Tongyeong City government and the Advisory Committee of Keoje City Policy Development, and was a Kyongnam Provincial Forum Advisor. Dr. Kim has also contributed to the Educatio sector, as Institute Professor at the Korean Ministry of Justice, Research & Training Division, as well as Superintendent of the Korean Foreign Language Institute. On the private sector side, Dr. Kim was Chairman of Royal Seaworld, Ltd, and was an On-the-Job Training Professor for several of Korea's largest conglomerates, including Samsung, Hyundai, Daewoo, Woojin, and SK Groups. He is a columnist to the English daily newspaper, "Kyeong-In Daily", an Ordained Minister, and Founder of the International Christian Medical Foundation.
SK Jo, Senior AdvisorPreviously, SK Jo served as Executive Director, Member of the Board of Directors, and Vice President at the Korea Export-Import Bank, South Korea's primary government export credit agency. For a period of almost 30 years, SK was a Senior Loan Officer in Project Finance, and also served as a Senior Fund Manager in the Treasury and International Finance Department. He was seconded to the Asian Development Bank, Mining & Industry Division in the early 1980's, then served as Deputy Managing Director in the HK office of the Korea Export-Import Bank, and as Chief Representative to Washington, DC in the mid-to-late 1990's. Mr. Jo is a Project Finance specialist, serving as an Advisor to Samsung Corporation and also as an Advisor to the Korea Plant Industries Association. He received an MBA from Yonsei University.
Jeongyong Lee, Senior AdvisorFor the past 25 years, Mr. Lee has been engaged in several large-scale infrastructure and civil engineering projects, including the $1.5 billion dollar Inchon International airport. From site dredging and reclamation, highway construction, terminal and control tower, and power supply facilities, Mr. Lee supervised over 200 professional engineers over a span of 3 years. In addition, he was responsible for a 6.5 million sq meter oil & gas pump station and pipe line project in Jubail, Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s. He was appointed associate professor for civil engineering at Seoul Industrial University, and received the Korean Presidential Commendation and Order of Industrial Merit for his service. As a former Managing Director and in-house advisor for Kumho Construction, he is the subject matter expert in public highway and sewerage projects ranging from the Semankun project in Korea, airport and terminal construction in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and water dam construction in Cambodia.
William Bahk, PartnerWilliam has led several corporate restructuring projects as President of CMP, Incorporated, in partnership with Korea Asset Management Corporation and US private equity manager, Cerberus. He was the Financial Director of a Five-Star hotel development project in Kwangju, Korea and is actively involved in real estate, construction, project finance, and international development with a Hong Kong-based realtor, which has a pipeline of resorts, leisure properties, and water redevelopments in Greater China. His past professional experience includes CFO of Puretech International, an environmental control system for Goldstar-Caltex oil refining. William has a degree in Public Administration from Yonsei University, a BA in Economics from Macalester College in St. Paul, MN, and courses in English Literature at Korea University.
Jeff Seok, Advisor - China & Infrastructure SpecialistJeff is Managing Director of the XinXin Group and brings 20 years of experience in strategic consulting, sourcing, and evaluating projects in environmental, chemical and IT industries. His specialty is in "green" and clean technologies, covering areas such as alternative and renewable energy, waste-water treatment, municipal solid waste incineration(MSWI), land-fill gas(LFG), coal-bed methane(CBM), and carbon trade. Jeff has had successful engagements with the World Alliance for Climate and Environment (WACE) -- a non-governmental organization under the UN with far-reaching influence in future climate and environmental negotiations. Jeff has served as a Chief Representative in Hong Kong and mainland China for the KCC Group, and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, English, and Korean. Jeff has an extensive network of relationships with venture communites in Northeast Asia due to his participation in the Korea CEO Network (KCN) and Daedeok Valley, the government-sponsored economic development region promoted by the Korean Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy since 2002.
Fred Pascual, Advisor Based out of
Sunny Youn, Managing Director & Principal
Based out of New York, Sunny has a background in finance, technology, and telecom infrastructure that she brings to her role as Principal Analyst for Avalon Venture. Over the past decade, Sunny was VP of business development at IDT Corporation, a global wholesale telecommunications provider where she oversaw the establishment of the global services sales force that handled MCI, Sprint, Deutsche Telekom, and France Telecom.
Previously, she was associate director of the digital business strategy practice of Cambridge Technology Partners, and Strategic Alliances Associate at AT&T and Lucent Technologies in the Office of the Chairman. In her role at Avalon Venture, she has taken a hands-on approach to incubating VC projects, including stints as CEO of Hi-Tech Movie, an online video streaming and media hosting company, and CFO at Imaginasian TV, the first Asian American cable TV network. Sunny has an M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a degree in economics from Brown University, magna cum laude. Her Wall Street experience ranges from the Structured Finance division at Goldman Sachs, the Equity Derivatives for Nomura Securities in Hong Kong, and Private Wealth Management at Morgan Stanley.
