Jeannie Park
Board Chair
Jeannie Park is a leader and executive in the areas of media and non-profit organizations. She is a former Executive Editor of People magazine, one of the world’s most successful magazines, where she oversaw editorial content as well as hiring, development, and budgeting for the editorial staff. She had similar responsibilities as Executive Editor at In Style and as an Assistant Managing Editor at Entertainment Weekly. She spent 22+ years at those and other titles at Time Inc., where she co-founded the company’s Asian-American employee affinity group.
In 1987 she served as founding president of the NY chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association. She was a speaker and facilitator for AAJA’s Executive Leadership Program for 20 years. She is VP of the board of the Third Street Music School Settlement, a 121-year-old cultural institution. She is 1st VP of the Harvard Asian American Alumni Alliance and co-founded its global summit in 2010. She serves on advisory councils for NetKAL, the Women’s Media Center, and Little Red Elisabeth Irwin, and is a member of the Council of Korean Americans. She has been honored for her diversity achievements by numerous organizations, including the National Association of Minority Media Executives, Asian Professional Extension, the Asian American Federation of New York, and the U.S. Asian Pacific American Chamber of Commerce. She lives in New York City and is the mother of two young adults. *Board Member since 2017
Prisca Bae
Prisca Bae is the Vice President of The Asian American Foundation (TAAF), a newly-launched organization founded to serve the Asian American and Pacific Islander community in the pursuit of belonging and prosperity that is free from discrimination, slander, and violence. She joined TAAF from the private sector where she designed and launched philanthropic and social impact initiatives centered around women and communities of color.
As an executive at PepsiCo, Prisca oversaw the gender diversity and women’s strategy for the Global Diversity & Engagement Center of Excellence and helped develop and launch a $100 million commitment to women and girls, and worked with leaders company-wide on gender parity and pay equity issues. She also served as chief of staff to PepsiCo’s Global Public Policy and Government Affairs group. Prior to PepsiCo, Prisca advised companies and nonprofits on strategic women’s initiatives as Vice President at Seneca Women, the advisory firm founded by the former U.S. Ambassador for Global Women’s Issues, Melanne Verveer.
Before joining PepsiCo, she served as the inaugural Director of the Women in the World Foundation, a public charity founded out of Tina Brown’s Women in the World Summit at Newsweek & the Daily Beast, and managed Goldman Sachs Gives, a billion-dollar charitable fund for the partners of Goldman Sachs.
Prisca began her career as an attorney at Latham & Watkins, LLP, and received her B.A. from Columbia College, Columbia University, and J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
She currently serves on the boards of The Roger Lehecka Double Discovery Center at Columbia University, the Korean American Community Foundation, and The Li.st, a community of high-impact women in media, business, and tech. Prisca was born in South Korea, was raised in Chicago, and is currently based in New York City. *Board Member since 2020
Alex Chi
Alex Chi is a partner in the Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs and head of the Private Credit Group in the Americas where he oversees the corporate leveraged loan, mezzanine, and preferred equity investing strategies. Alex joined Goldman Sachs in New York after graduating from MIT in 1994 and spent the substantial majority of his career working in investment banking including financial sponsors where he led the firm’s efforts in the Americas, leveraged finance, mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and debt capital markets.
Alex also spent three years in Asia based in Hong Kong and Seoul. Notably, Alex was deeply involved in the debt restructuring and capital raise assignment for the South Korean government during the height of the Asian currency crisis in 1998 and was instrumental in developing Goldman Sachs’ investment banking franchise in Korea. Alex was named managing director in 2006 and became the first Korean American to be elected as a partner in 2012. In addition to serving on the Merchant Banking Credit Investment Committee, Alex also leads Goldman Sachs’ firmwide recruiting efforts at MIT and co-founded the firmwide Asian Professionals Network which focuses on the recruitment, development, and promotion of Asian professionals at Goldman Sachs. Alex also serves on the Board of the JED Foundation and is a native New Yorker. *Board Member since 2014
Michael K. Chung
Secretary
Michael Keyhoon Chung is the CEO of CIG Education Group and an Operating Partner with its parent company, Cambridge Information Group (CIG), a family office focused on investing in and operating companies in the education sector. Michael’s responsibilities include oversight of all of CIG’s education businesses and the execution of key strategic and operating initiatives for CIG companies. He serves on the Board of Directors of CIG Education Group subsidiaries, The School of The New York Times, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, and Bach to Rock.
During his tenure at CIG, he served as the interim CEO and Board member at Navtech, Inc. (a CIG portfolio company) and led the turnaround of the company, which was acquired in 2016 by Airbus. He also served on the Board of Directors at ProQuest from 2008 to 2013.
Michael came to CIG from Barr Associates, Inc. (Barr), the largest independent manufacturer of advanced optical filters, where he served as Chief Operating Officer. Barr was a client of Michael during his tenure at the Goldman Sachs Group. Michael successfully led the execution of the turnaround of Barr from near bankruptcy to a profitable and growing company and subsequently helped execute the sale of Barr to Materion Corporation in 2009.
Prior to joining Barr Associates, Michael spent seven years at Goldman Sachs, most recently as Vice President in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department focusing on the communications technology sector. Over his tenure at Goldman Sachs, Michael worked on numerous M&A and private equity investment transactions across a wide range of industries including information services, telecommunications, high technology, biotech, and energy.
Michael was born in Korea and from the age of 9, grew up in Manila, Philippines. After graduating from the International School of Manila, Michael enrolled in the Management and Technology Dual Bachelor’s Degree Program at the University of Pennsylvania where he earned a B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the School of Engineering. Michael holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. Michael has been DJ-ing at clubs and lounges since high school and is an avid collector of vinyl records with a particular affinity for extended remixes of club hits representing the genres of disco, R&B, funk, 80s new wave, and house music. He is one of the founders of Beat Refinery, which is currently one of the largest chains of DJ and electronic music schools in America. Michael and his wife Hannah live in New York City with their sons Michael Jr. and Lucas. *Board member since 2018
Hon. Judy Kim
Judge Judy H. Kim was elected to the Civil Court of the City of New York, New York County on November 8, 2016, and took office on January 1, 2017. She is the first Korean American to be elected to the bench in New York state. She has over twenty years of legal experience and spent several years in private practice, where she specialized in maritime/admiralty law, commercial litigation, employment discrimination, and matrimonial matters.
Immediately prior to joining the judiciary, Judge Kim served as associate counsel in the Bureau & Estates Litigation Section of the Legal Division at the New York Liquidation Bureau. She also served as interim Section Chief where she managed other attorneys while simultaneously overseeing hundreds of cases.
Prior to joining the bench, Judge Kim served as the Vice-Chair and board member of the Korean American League for Civic Action (KALCA) from 2013–2016. She also served on the board of the Stonewall Community Development Corporation, a not-for-profit organization that assists LGBT Seniors in procuring affordable and safe housing options in the NYC area. Judge Kim was also a volunteer attorney at the Legal Aid Desk operated by Open Hands Legal Services, providing free legal services to low-income residents and homeless people in NYC. She also served as a volunteer attorney in the Monday Night Law Clinic, operated by the New York City Bar Association, and has also served on the boards of the Asian American Bar Association of New York, Korean American Lawyers Association of Greater New York (KALAGNY) and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. She received the Trailblazer Award from KALAGNY in 2017. Currently, Judge Kim serves on the Executive Committee as Secretary on the Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert (JALBCA), a not-for-profit organization focused on breast cancer outreach and education.
Judge Kim received her B.A. in American History and Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and her J.D., cum laude from Tulane School of Law. *Board Member since 2020
Lisa Kim
Lisa Kim is a retired lawyer who has served on the board of the New York Writers Coalition and Pam Tanowitz Dance. She currently volunteers her time as a Court Appointed Special Advocate, working on New York City Forster Care cases that need additional support (CASA-NYC). Lisa also served on the KACF Community Grants Committee in 2020 and co-chaired KACF’s Annual Gala in 2021. She lives in New York with her husband, where they are raising three children. She is a passionate knitter and golfer.
David H. Lee
Treasurer
David is a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs where he serves as Co-Head of Americas Insurance Fixed Income. In this role, he manages a team of portfolio managers who oversee fixed income portfolios on behalf of domestic and multinational insurance companies that meet their income, performance, and asset-liability management objectives. David is also an active participant in workplace diversity initiatives and serves on the CIMD Asian Professionals Network Steering Committee.
David received his A.B. in Physics from Princeton University, where he was a Varsity Wrestler. In his free time, David can be found sailing on the Hudson River, listening to music, or playing some tunes on his saxophone. He was a founding member of the KACF Associate Board, serving from 2016 to 2018, and also served previously on the KACF Community Grants Committee. David currently resides in New York City with his wife and son. * Board Member since 2018
Edward J. Lee
Edward J. Lee is a corporate Partner in the New York office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Ed focuses on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, and shareholder activism defense. He has advised a broad range of public and private clients across many industries, including technology and digital, telecom, healthcare, industrial, aerospace and defense, automotive, media and advertising, energy, private equity, and financial institutions.
Ed is recognized as one of the 500 leading lawyers in America by Lawdragon, “highly regarded” within the M&A practice by IFLR1000, and as a “Rising Star” in Corporate/M&A by Expert Guides. Recently, Ed was also recognized as a leading M&A lawyer by The Legal 500 and one of six M&A lawyers recognized by Law360 as a Rising Star under 40. Ed currently serves on the Cornell University Council and the Boards of Directors of the Harvard Law School Association of New York City and Cornell University’s College of Human Ecology Alumni Association. He is a David Rockefeller Fellow, Class of 2017‐2018.
Ed is a member of the Council of Korean Americans and is part of the Leadership Advisory Council of the Korean American Lawyers Association of Greater New York, as well as Co‐Chair of the Corporate Law Committee of the Asian American Bar Association of New York.
Prior to Kirkland, Ed was a Partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School and his B.S. at Cornell University. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and three children. * Board Member since 2021
Cathy Oh
Cathy Oh serves as Vice President, Global Head of Marketing and Analytics for Samsung Ads, capitalizing on approximately 15 years of global integrated marketing experience with Fortune 100 companies. As one of the first employees of Samsung Ads, Cathy was integral to building the Samsung Ads brand from the ground up, and under her leadership, the organization is redefining the advertising and Advanced TV landscape. Samsung Ads is one of the fastest-growing North American divisions of the electronics giant.
Throughout her career, Cathy has built a track record of developing global brands, large-scale marketing strategies and activations, sales initiatives, and marketing programs for global sales teams. In addition, her insights-focused approach enables Cathy to quantify marketing value throughout an organization. Prior to joining Samsung Ads, Cathy served as Head of Marketing for iAd, Global Brands & Agencies (a division of Apple) where she developed multi-platform marketing programs that yielded more than $20 million in revenue, and successfully drove relationship management for global advertisers such as Pepsi, Unilever, American Express and Procter & Gamble. In addition to Apple, where Cathy managed a global team, she has held marketing positions at companies that include WebMD and NBC Universal. Areas of Expertise include Marketplace Positioning, Global Project Management, Digital Marketing Strategy, Marketing Insights and Analytics, Product Readiness & Expansion, Large-scale Sponsorships, Creative Branding Solutions, and Vertical-driven Marketing. Cathy received a Master’s Degree in Integrated Marketing from New York University and a Bachelor’s of Science from Carnegie Mellon University. She also serves on the Advisory Board for Conscious Step. Cathy lives in Gramercy, NY when she isn’t traveling the globe for both work and pleasure. *Board member since 2018
Chul Pak
Chul Pak is a partner in Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati’s antitrust practice, where he focuses on antitrust litigation, mergers, and counseling. Chul defends clients in class actions, individual lawsuits, and complex multi-district antitrust litigations across the United States. His litigation matters include representing manufacturers, services companies, and technology firms in monopolization, tying, exclusive dealing, price-fixing, patent misuse, and conspiracy claims. Chul also counsels companies in mergers and non-merger investigations before the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and numerous state attorneys general.
Prior to joining the firm, Chul served as the assistant director of the Mergers IV Division at the Federal Trade Commission. In that role, Chul supervised a 25-attorney team responsible for investigating mergers and acquisitions across a wide spectrum of industries, including consumer goods (food and beverages), retail stores (supermarkets, department stores, and other retail venues), cable and related media entertainment, and hospitals. Chul also represented the FTC in numerous high-profile trials in federal court and the FTC’s internal administrative adjudication tribunal. He received his J.D. from New York University’s School of Law and his B.A. from Swarthmore College. *Board Member since 2015
Chris Park
Chris Park is the CEO of GenG Esports (2018-present), a global esports organization. Based in Los Angeles, Seoul, and Shanghai, Gen.G owns and operates top esports teams that have won 6 world championships in the company’s first two years. Gen.G also owns and operates innovative gaming programs, including the Gen.G Elite Esports Academy, and the #TeamBumble platform for the empowerment of women in gaming.
Prior to his appointment in GenG, Chris was the Executive Vice President for Product & Marketing at Major League Baseball, where he spent most of his career. He managed digital product development, marketing, and business operations from 2015 to 2018, and served as a Deputy General Counsel and Vice President of Labor Economics from 2008 to 2012. He began his MLB career as a Counsel for the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball from 2005 to 2007.
A trained lawyer specializing in collective bargaining, Chris also worked in user operations for Facebook and clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams in the US Court of Appeals in the D.C. Circuit.
Chris is a graduate of Harvard University (B.A., 2001) and Harvard Law School (J.D., 2004), both magna cum laude. He formerly served on the Board of Directors for the Family Caregiver Alliance (San Francisco, CA). He currently lives in New Jersey with his wife Michelle Jang and their daughter Josephine. *Board Member since 2020
David K. Park, Ph.D.
David K. Park is Vice Provost of Strategic Initiatives at Northeastern University and a Member of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. Dr. Park is also The Honorary Distinguished Professor of Solbridge International School of Business and Honorary Dean of the Future College at Woosong University and supports Woosong Education Foundation as a Global Advisor. Dr. Park co-chairs the Council of Advisors for the Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy. Dr. Park is a member of the Data Science Institute, Fellow at the Center for the Management of Systemic Risk, and founding member of the Digital Storytelling Lab at Columbia University. Dr. Park was formerly Dean of Strategic Initiatives for the Faculty of the Arts and Sciences at Columbia University and co-founded several New York-based technology companies in the areas of natural language processing and machine learning.
Dr. Park is currently exploring the historical arc of universities, limitations and possibilities of “big data”, how failure and vulnerability are the foundations of innovation and creativity across organizations, as well as the electoral origins of congressional polarization. Dr. Park is also working on several manuscripts including, The Twentieth Century Sectional Reversal: How did the Republican States Switch to the Democrats and Vice Versa? and Is History Repeating Itself? Comparing 1875 to 1928 and 1971 to 2008.
Dr. Park received his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland and his Ph.D. in political science at Columbia where he focused on historical-comparative institutional analyses of societal change. He was an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Applied Statistics at Washington University, Assistant Professor at George Washington University, Visiting Professor at Columbia University, and Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. He has written numerous articles and co-authored Red State Blue State Rich State Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do (Princeton University Press, 2008).*Board member since 2018.
Rich Park
Rich Park is Managing Director and Head of the Strategic Solutions Group at the Mizuho Group where his responsibilities include Corporate & Structured Finance and Mergers & Acquisitions. He is also a member of the firm’s Management Committee for the Corporate & Investment Bank in the Americas and the Executive Sponsor of MAAP, Mizuho’s Asian American Professional Network. Prior to joining Mizuho, Rich was a Managing Director at Deutsche Bank for nearly 15 years where he focused on the private equity, credit, and industrials sectors and was a member of the firm’s Global Credit and Financing Executive Committee.
In addition, Rich was actively involved with Deutsche Bank’s diversity initiatives where he served as the Executive Sponsor for the firm’s Multicultural Partnership. Rich currently serves on the Boards of Northwestern University Weinberg College Board of Visitors; Beacon Power Services, a startup that focuses on solving Africa’s energy needs; The Korean American Community Foundation, one of the largest Asian-American focused charitable organizations in the country; and is actively involved with Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Cycle for Survival, an organization dedicated to funding research of rare cancers. Rich is a graduate of Northwestern University, not far from his hometown of Chicago. He currently resides in Brooklyn with his wife, Sunhee, and their sons, Aidan and Bennett. *Board Member since 2017
James Seo
James Seo is the principal of James Seo Commercial, a commercial real estate advisory and brokerage. He has over 20 years of industry experience, specializing in corporate strategy and tenant representation for office, retail, and industrial users. His expertise includes sale-leasebacks, investment sales, complex financial analysis, lease administration support, RFP and timeline documentation processes, broker selection, and market analysis. James has worked on several office and retail transactions in the New York Area, ranging from startup offices to large corporate headquarter relocations.
Outside New York, his corporate work includes portfolio sale-leasebacks throughout North America. James received a BA in Economics from Wesleyan University and holds real estate broker licenses in New York and Florida. He previously served on KACF’s board and is honored to continue working for the organization. He resides in Riverdale, NY with his wife and two children. *Board Member since 2019
S. Steven Yang
Dr. S. Steven Yang is a Clinical Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at the NYU School of Medicine. He is a principal of The Hand Center of the NYU Langone Medical Center-Hospital for Joint Diseases. Formerly he was the Director of the Division of Hand and Upper Extremity at Lenox Hill Hospital and served on the Medical Executive Committee of MEETH-North Shore-LIJ Health System. He is an attending surgeon at New York Hospital Queens. Dr. Yang is board certified in orthopedic surgery and has a Certificate of Added Qualification in Surgery of the Hand. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and a member of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand.
After graduating from Yale University, he studied at the Duke University School of Medicine. He received a Master of Public Health degree in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard School of Public Health. He trained in general and orthopedic surgery at the Lenox Hill Hospital. Fellowship training in surgery of the hand and upper extremity was undertaken at the Hospital for Special Surgery of the Weill Cornell University Medical College. He is widely published in peer-reviewed journals and textbooks of orthopedic surgery on the subject of upper extremity reconstruction. Dr. Yang is involved with a number of community organizations and most recently served on the board of the Council of Korean Americans. He resides in New York City with his wife and two children. *Board Member since 2015
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