Speakers
Aditi Kumar, Welcoming Remarks
Aditi is the Executive Director of the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to coming to the Belfer Center, Kumar was a Principal at Oliver Wyman, a management consultancy, in the financial services and public policy practices. She worked primarily with U.S. commercial and investment banks as well as U.S. regulators and policymakers on designing and implementing financial and economic policy. Kumar previously served as a project manager at the World Economic Forum, responsible for leading policy discussions among financial sector executives and policymakers on managing financial risk and designing effective global financial regulation. Kumar is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Business School, where she studied international affairs, and specifically the nexus of national security and financial and economic policy. She previously worked at the International Affairs office of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, focused on assessing the public debt sustainability of Eastern European nations. She graduated from the Huntsman Program for International Studies and Business at the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Science in Economics and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies.
Dr. LEE Geun, Opening Remarks
Dr. Lee is President of the Korea Foundation. Prior to his appointment by the Republic of Korea government, Dr. Lee was Professor of International Politics at Seoul National University’s Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS). He also served as Vice Dean of GSIS and Dean of the Office of International Affairs at Seoul National University. He has conducted over 20 years of research on Korea’s foreign affairs and international exchanges, and served as an advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He previously served as President of the Korea Institute for Future Strategies and Professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security. Dr. Lee graduated with a bachelor's degree in foreign affairs from Seoul National University and obtained his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Professor LEE Jaemin, Speaker
Professor Lee is currently Professor of Law at Seoul National University’s School of Law. His major areas of teaching and research are public international law, international investment law, and international trade law. He has published articles and book chapters on various topics of public international law, international investment law, and international trade law. Upon graduation from Seoul National University’s College of Law in 1992, he joined the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a foreign service officer. His post in the ministry included deputy directorship of the Treaties Division and the North American Trade Division. Between 2000 and 2004, he also practiced law with Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP (Washington, D.C. office) as an associate attorney of the firm’s international trade group. During the period of 2004 to 2013 he taught international law and international economic law at Hanyang University’s School of Law. He is currently president of the Korean Society of International Economic Law, and standing director of the Korean Society of International Law. He is also listed in the rosters of dispute settlement panels of the Korea-U.S. FTA and Korea-EU FTA.
Professor Joseph Nye, Jr., Speaker
Professor Nye is University Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus and former Dean of the Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He received his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Princeton University, won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, and earned a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard. He has served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Chair of the National Intelligence Council, and Deputy Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology. His most recent books include Soft Power, The Powers to Lead, The Future of Power, Is the American Century Over?, and Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and the American Academy of Diplomacy. In a recent survey of international relations scholars, he was ranked as the most influential scholar on American foreign policy, and in 2011, Foreign Policy named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers.
Dr. John Park, Moderator
Dr. Park is Director of the Korea Project at Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a Faculty Member of the Committee on Regional Studies East Asia at Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a Faculty Affiliate with the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard Kennedy School. Dr. Park’s current research projects focus on nuclear proliferation, economic statecraft, Asian trade negotiations, and North Korean cyber activities. He previously directed Asia Track 1.5 projects at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He earlier worked at Goldman Sachs and The Boston Consulting Group. His publications include: “Stopping North Korea, Inc.: Sanctions Effectiveness and Unintended Consequences,” (MIT Security Studies Program, 2016 -- co-authored with Jim Walsh); and “Assessing the Role of Security Assurances in Dealing with North Korea” in Security Assurances and Nuclear Nonproliferation (Stanford University Press, 2012). Dr. Park received his M.Phil. and Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. He completed his predoctoral and postdoctoral training at Harvard Kennedy School.
Dr. Christopher Smart, Speaker
Dr. Smart is Chief Global Strategist and Head of the Barings Investment Institute. The Institute explores current macroeconomic and political dynamics, as well as the forces that shape long-term investment and capital decisions. Dr. Smart has worked in the investment industry since 1995, managing international and emerging markets strategies, and has also served as a senior economic policy official at the U.S. Treasury and the White House. Prior to joining the firm in 2018, Christopher was Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. From 2013 to 2015, he served as Special Assistant to the President at the National Economic Council and the National Security Council, where he was principal advisor on trade, investment and a wide range of global economic issues. Dr. Smart also spent four years as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, where he led the response to the European financial crisis and designed U.S. engagement on financial policy across Europe, Russia and Central Asia. Prior to his government service, he worked as the Director of International Investments at Pioneer Investments where he managed top-performing Emerging Markets and International portfolios. Earlier in his career, he was an advisor to the Russian Finance Ministry following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Dr. Smart holds a B.A. in History from Yale University and a Ph.D. in International Relations from Columbia University.
Professor YOON Young-kwan, Speaker
Professor Yoon is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Seoul National University. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Korean government from 2003 to 2004. Before he joined the faculty of Seoul National University in 1990, he taught at the University of California at Davis. He served as Korea’s Eminent Representative to, and co-chair of, the East Asia Vision Group II from September 2011 to October 2012. He has published several books and some 70 articles in the fields of international political economy, Korea’s foreign policy, and inter-Korean relations, some of which appeared in World Politics, International Political Science Review, Asian Survey, and Project Syndicate. Professor Yoon received his doctoral degree from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
