37th Annual 2017 NCLC Speakers
Hon. David E. Ryu, City of Los Angeles Councilmember, District 4
Los Angeles City Councilmember David E. Ryu represents the 4th Council District which includes the neighborhoods of Sherman Oaks, Toluca Lake, Hollywood, Hollywood Hills, Los Feliz, Silverlake, Miracle Mile, Hancock Park, Windsor Square, Larchmont and a portion of Koreatown.
Ryu studied economics at UCLA; Public Policy and Administration at Rutgers; won a prestigious United Nations graduate internship; and was a Netkal Fellow at USC’s School of Social Work.
As Senior Deputy to Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Burke, he worked for years on issues like public health, housing, children and family services, transportation and senior services. He helped oversee the County budget and worked for a time as a Special Investigator for the Auditor-Controller, rooting out waste and fraudulent expenditures.
Ryu returned to the non-profit world and served as Director of Development and Public Affairs at one of Los Angeles’s largest non-profit health care providers: Kedren Acute Psychiatric Hospital and Community Health Center.
On July 1st, 2015 Ryu became the first Korean American to serve on the LA City Council and only the second Asian American.
Hon. Soo Yoo, ABC Board of Education Member
Soo Yoo, Clerk of the Board, was elected to the ABC School Board in 2013. She is the Founder and Director an of an after school tutoring and college preparatory academy since 1994. Too earned her Bachelor Degree from University of California, Irvine and a Master's Degree in Counseling from Westminster Theological Seminary. She is also a member of PTA at Wittmann Elementary and served on the School Site Council at Gahr High School. Additionally, she served as a girl's volunteer basketball coach for the City of Cerritos Park and Recreation. In 2007, Soo founded the American Red Cross, Gateway Chapter. She is the Artesia/Cerritos Annual Team Sponsor for American Cancer Society-Relay for Life since 2008. Soo is an advisor to the Mid-City Korean Senior Association. A Cerritos resident since 1996, Soo is married to Sam, a Pastor, for 22 years. They have four children: Hannah, Amy, Rachel, and Abigail. They all attended, or attend ABC Schools at Wittmann Elementary, Carmenita Middle School and Gahr High School.
Tad Yo, Executive Director of the Asian Baseball Operations at the Boras Corporation
Tad Yo is currently the Executive Director of the Asian Baseball Operations at the Boras Corporation, a baseball-only sports agency. In 2014, the Boras Corporation was named by Forbes Magazine as the most valuable single-sport agency in the world. He has served as agents of many prominent Korean Baseball Players, including Shin-soo Choo and Suk-min Yoon.
Tad has also served as the Vice President and General Manager of Time Warner Cable, San Diego Division – Desert Cities. Tad is responsible for managing the 170,000 cable customers in the Coachella Valley including newly acquired systems from Adelphia in Desert Hot Springs and Yucca Valley. Along with his operational duties, Tad is primarily responsible for the growth of Digital, High Speed Data and Digital Phone customers in the Valley.
Tad started his career at Time Warner Cable as the Business Manager/Director of Business Operations responsible for the budgeting, forecasting, and the annual internal control/audit process for which he developed strategies to enhance control procedures within the region. Prior to his move to Los Angeles, Tad was a Financial Analyst at Time Warner Cable’s National Division in Denver, Colorado. Tad is a graduate of the University of Denver, Daniels College of Business, earning a BSBA degree in Finance/Marketing in 1994. In 1996, Tad completed his MBA with an emphasis in Finance from his alma mater. He is also an alumnus of the Walter Kaitz Foundation and CTAM University at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and Harvard Business School.
Phyllis Kim, Executive Director at the Korean American Forum of California (KAFC)
Phyllis Kim is the Executive Director at Korean American Forum of California, formed to urge Japanese government to officially apologize and accept historical responsibility for the military sexual slavery during the 1930s and WWII.
In an effort to continue to raise awareness regarding this unresolved history, as well as to pressure the government of Japan to formally acknowledge and apologize for its past war crime of military sexual slavery, Phyllis helped form the Korean American Forum of California. Her effort was to build “comfort women” statue (The Peace Monument) in Glendale, California. This monument memorializes a history which should never again be repeated and acts as a gateway to teach the next generation the truth. Our efforts to raise public awareness and teach the next generation about this largely unknown, heinous war crime against women continue today.
Jane Lee-Kwon, Executive Services Director at American College of Surgeons
Jane Lee-Kwon is the KAC National Board Chair and Senior Advisor at KAC-Chicago, which she co-founded in 2003. She attended the University of Toronto as an undergraduate and received a master's in Public Services Management at DePaul University. Jane has spent the majority of her career in public education, health care administration, and non-profits handling operation, programs/projects, personnel and strategy. Jane currently works as Executive Services Director at American College of Surgeons. Born in Germany and raised in Canada, Jane now resides in Chicago with her husband John, a Cook County Public Defender, and their lovely & mischievous felines.
Keith Kim, Former Senior Executive at Samsung Electronics
Keith Kim is one of the founding members of the Korean American Coalition and founded the National College Leadership Conference. Since then, he has been serving on the National Board Advisor of KAC.
Aside from his service for KAC, he is also part of the Founding Board of Directors of the Leadership Education for Asian Pacific and the Korean American Scholarship Foundation (KASF) Western region. Keith also served as a senior executive at Samsung Electronics.
He has also received numerous awards, including the Commendation and Merit from the Foreign Minister of Republic of Korea Award and the Personality of the West and Midwest Award.
Ann Lee, Deputy District Attorney, County of Los Angeles
Ann S. Lee has been a Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles County since 2006. She has prosecuted numerous misdemeanor and felony cases. Some of these cases were as simple as driving under the influence, and as serious as domestic violence murder. Some of her cases have appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the Daily Breeze newspapers. She is currently assigned to the Healthcare Fraud Division, working on cases involving disability fraud and provider fraud. These cases may involve prosecuting doctors, dentists, pharmacist, chiropractors, and nurses. Previous to the current assignment, Ms. Lee was in the Victim Impact Program, which dealt with child molestation, sexual assault, child abuse, domestic violence, elder abuse, and hate crimes. In 2009, Ms. Lee was chosen to participate in Overseas Korean Foundation’s Leadership Conference. Ms. Lee has been involved locally with the Korean American Democratic Committee (KADC) both as an executive board member as well as an advisory board member. Currently, she sits on the board of Korean Prosecutors Association (KPA). Ms. Lee attended The College of Wooster, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and a minor in Chemistry and subsequently Northeastern School of Law. Ms. Lee is also the President and founding member of a non-profit organization, Sharing Love in Korea, that directly helps children at an orphanage in South Korea.
CDR Henry Kim, Naval Surface & Mine Warfighting Development Center/Resources, Analysis, & Experimentation
Commander Kim is a native of Los Angeles, California and was commissioned in 1996 from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) NROTC program with a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations. Specializing in East Asia, he gained fluency in Korean and Japanese.
His first assignment was onboard USS PORT ROYAL (CG 73) taking part in one of the Navy’s first Ballistic Missile Defense capability upgrades and conducting Maritime Interdiction Operations in the Arabian Gulf. He next served onboard USS KITTY HAWK (CV 63) enforcing the No Fly Zone and supporting UN Sanctions against the Saddam regime. He was then selected as Flag Aide to Commander, Logistics Group Western Pacific (COMLOG WESTPAC) based in Singapore, building partner nation security capacity with Southeast Asian countries to include Thailand, Brunei, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. CDR Kim was then accepted into the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) where he earned a dual Master’s Degree in Operations Research from NPS and a Master’s Degree in Defense Systems & Technology from the National University of Singapore (NUS).
CDR Kim was next assigned to Commander, U.S. Forces Central Command (CENTCOM) as part of the J8 Resources & Analysis Branch developing a joint Department of State/Defense Strategic Plan in Islamabad, Pakistan. He was then selected as the Assistant Executive Officer for the Deputy Commander supporting anti-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Yemen as well as anti-piracy efforts in the Horn of Africa.
CDR Kim then served as Commanding Officer of USS FORT WORTH (LCS 3), the US Navy’s newest warship class incorporating state of the art navigation, engineering, weapons, and unmanned systems. He currently serves as the N8/9 Branch Head for the Naval Surface & Mine Warfighting Development Center (NSMWDC, aka “Surface Warfare TOP GUN”) responsible for all Surface Warfare Tactics and Doctrine development.
His military decorations include the Defense & Navy Meritorious Service Medals, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation and Achievement Medals, and the Joint Service Achievement Medal.
Susie Oh, Senior Private Banker for Wells Fargo Private Bank
Susie Oh is a Sr. Private Banker for the Beverly Hills region of Wells Fargo Private Bank. As part of The Private Bank, Susie works with high net worth clients of the bank to understand their needs and coordinates a team of specialists to provide clients with wealth management services, including banking, credit, investment management, and trust & estate services through Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., as well as brokerage services through Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC. Prior to joining Wells Fargo, Susie was a Private Client Manager at U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management in Downtown Los Angeles for the last 10 years. Susie has been in the banking industry for over 25 years. She earned her Bachelor of Science from University of Southern California. Susie currently serves on two boards: St. Barnabas Senior Services and the Korean American Coalition (KAC).
Michael Sohn, FBI Supervisory Special Agent (SSA)
Supervisory Special Agent Michael Sohn is currently leading a squad at the FBI Los Angeles Field Division that is responsible for investigating computer and high-technology crimes involving national security matters. His investigative experience includes cyber terrorism, Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), and various criminal computer intrusion matters. Prior to his employment with the FBI, he worked as a Cyber Counterintelligence Officer for the Department of the Army, a Counter Terrorism officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency, a consultant in the Information Technology industry, and a U.S. Army Officer. Michael received a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the United States Marine Academy, West Point and a Master of Science in Computer Information Systems from Boston University.
Supervisory Special Agent Michael Sohn is currently leading a squad at the FBI Los Angeles Field Division that is responsible for investigating computer and high-technology crimes involving national security matters. His investigative experience includes cyber terrorism, Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), and various criminal computer intrusion matters. Prior to his employment with the FBI, he worked as a Cyber Counterintelligence Officer for the Department of the Army, a Counter Terrorism officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency, a consultant in the Information Technology industry, and a U.S. Army Officer. Michael received a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the United States Marine Academy, West Point and a Master of Science in Computer Information Systems from Boston University.