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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 Projects
As 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, Principal
James 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.

William Bahk, Partner
William 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 Specialist
Jeff 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 Manila, Philippines, Alfredo E. Pascual has extensive experience in international banking, finance, and investment. For almost 20 years, Mr. Pascual was Director of Private Sector Infrastructure Finance, Director of Capital Markets, Advisor for Public-Private Partnership, and Senior Investment Officer at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), where he oversaw and managed financings of a number of private sector infrastructure projects in the power, water, transport, and telecommunication sectors, as well as investments in commercial banks, private equity funds, guarantee companies and facilities, rating agencies, housing finance companies, and non-bank-financial institutions. His area of coverage included Greater China, Southeast Asia, and South Asia, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Prior to joining ADB, Mr. Pascual held senior positions at First Metro Investment, Philippine Pacific Capital (now RCBC Capital), and Bancom. He was Professor of finance and banking at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) and served as its Director of its Advanced Bank Management Program.

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.

Jason Koh, Associate Partner, Real Estate Development

For the past 16 years, Jason has been involved as an engineer and town planner with extensive professional experience in hotel, resort, and property development in Busan, Gangwon Province, and Chejudo regions of Korea. He has also been involved in project estimation, feasibility, financial assessment, sales and marketing for the leisure property development in Vietnam, Cambodia, Mongolia, Canada, China, Indonesia, South Africa, Philippines, and Malaysia in which he has been involved in.

Based out of Korea and Australia, he is currently acting as consultant for a hotel project in Chejudo, Korea, while serving as CEO of K2 Consulting & Development. Jason is a graduate of Cheongju University, with a major in regional development and urban planning.