Inaugural Emerging Female Leaders Program
The Asia Society Policy Institute's Emerging Female Leaders program offers the opportunity for female professionals from South Korea with interest and experience in international trade to participate in an intensive 10-day long program in the United States featuring workshops, briefings, and capacity-building exercises in Washington, D.C., New York City, and San Francisco. The program focuses on developing skills and competencies for trade negotiations and working in the trade field more broadly. It seeks to deepen understanding of trade negotiations and policymaking, while providing mentorship and guidance for women’s empowerment in the workplace.
The inaugural program took place in Fall 2019 and included meetings with current and former U.S. officials; trade experts; and female leaders in finance, the media, and tech sectors. Asia Society Northern California was pleased to host the inaugural cohort of the Emerging Female Leaders program from October 6 to October 9, 2019. The first class of this program included:
- Eunhee Bae, second secretary in the East Asian Economic Affairs Division in the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Sunghwa Chung, senior deputy director in the FTA Agreement Services and Investment Division of the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy
- Boyeun Kim, deputy Director working in the Korea-U.S. Trade Division in the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy
- Sung Min Koh, deputy director at the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy
- Jahye Park, senior manager at the Hyundai Motor Group
- Song-I Seol, deputy general manager at the Korea International Trade Association (KITA), a Korean private sector trade association
- Ji Yeon Song, attorney at Kim & Chang, one of the most prestigious law firms in Korea
ACTIVITIES
After spending the week in Washington D.C. and New York, the group flew to San Francisco for the final leg of the trip. With the support of Asia Society Northern California, the group had a number of excellent meetings including with Lia Theodosiou-Pisanelli of Aurora, James Green of McLarty Associates, and Adama Iwu of Visa. The group attended a panel on succeeding in the tech sector with ASNC Trustee Jaleh Daie and Anita Sands, who sits on the boards of Symantec, Pure Storage, and Service Now, moderated by Gina Chon of Thompson Reuters.
The group also took a trip to Silicon Valley to visit IBM's Research Center, where the 2019 class met with top female scientists and researchers, including Wendy Belluomini, as well as a tour of Google's Campus in Mountain View where they met with a group of prominent Korean-Americans, including Jan Kang, Chief Legal Officer at Chronicle, and Salle Yoo, who was Uber's Chief Legal Officer. At Google, the group also met with Karan Bhatia, formerly Deputy USTR and now Google's Vice President of Public Policy & Government Affairs.