Current Seoul: Korea at a Crypto Inflection

David Katz is the Vice President for Strategy and Policy for the Asia Pacific region at Circle Internet Group, Inc. (NYSE: CRCL), a global financial technology firm and stablecoin market leader.‍As a member of Circle’s global and APAC senior leadership teams, his focus is on strategic planning for markets and engaging APAC governments and stakeholders on policies related to Circle’s products and services.‍Prior to his current appointment, David was the Managing Director of Public Affairs for Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) based in Singapore. He has also held leadership roles at Intuitive, PayPal, eBay, and Visa, and served in the U.S. diplomatic service, USTR, and as special assistant to two U.S. Secretaries of State.

Jongbaek Park, who leads the Blockchain and Crypto-asset team, mainly advises on blockchain, cryptoasset, fintech, personal information protection, compliance obligations relating to open source software, info-communications industry, cross-border/domestic financial transactions, asset management and real estate investment, capital markets and private fund investment. Mr. Park also has provided advisory services for various committees and governmental agencies regarding vcrypto assets, STOs and open source related issues.

Mr. Park began his career as lawyer in 1992. With the Chevening Scholarship awarded by the Foreign Commonwealth Office, U.K. in 1999, he studied at the London School of Economics, earning an LL.M. degree (International Financial Law). He worked at the London headquarters and Hong Kong branch of Richards Butler, a UK law firm, for about one year. After returning to Korea, he focused his practice on a wide range of financial and corporate transactions. Starting from 2007, his practice was extended to advising on open-source software licenses and compliance issues. He then became a member of the FSFE and also led the Korea Open Source Software Law Center. Since 2016, while advising on mainnet blockchains, ICO, STO, DeFi, NFT, Game tokens, tokenization, DAO projects and a variety of business models using blockchain technologies and virtual assets including payment gate service using payment tokens, he has not only participated as a speaker or panel member in numerous international and domestic conferences on almost every crypto-asset related issues and new legislation, and the regulatory sandbox, but has also actively engaged in the task force with the National Pariament to make a draft bill for governing the overall virtual asset industry. He has also led Bae, Kim & Lee LLC Blockchain and Crypto-asset Conference held periodically for a couple of years. Mr. Park has recently authored “Crypto Sapiens and Changing Order (Sejong Books, 2023)” based on his extensive work experience in advising many corporations and governments in regard to the blockchain area.

Mr. Park graduated from the Department of Law of Seoul National University and earned an LL.B. from Seoul National University and LL.M. from Seoul National University School of Law. He completed the 18th training course of the Judicial Research and Training Institute. He joined BKL in November 2013.

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Ben Morris is VP at Circle and responsible for exchange and custodian partnerships globally. He brings over 15 years of financial services experience, having held senior roles at Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters across various regions. Ben entered the blockchain industry in 2018, leading ecosystem and BD functions at Status.im and Nervos Network before joining Circle, where he has focused on driving USDC adoption across the world's leading digital asset venues.

Alex Lewis is a Senior Manager of Solutions Engineering at Circle, where he leads global technical partnerships for exchanges, custodians, and liquidity partners. Previously, Alex partnered with APAC-based payments partners on stablecoin-powered payments and settlement solutions, giving him a holistic view of how Circle can serve its partners across all industries. He is based in Singapore.

Elton Tay works in Developer Relations at Circle, where he helps builders create real-world applications with USDC, Arc, and Circle’s full-stack platform. His work focuses on making stablecoin infrastructure easier to understand, adopt, and ship.

Nearly two decades of experience translating between technology, and economic policies and business objectives in high-intensity roles at multinationals, investment bank, and government. Spearheads complex, high-stakes strategies through direct negotiations, external-ally building, and leadership across geographically-dispersed cross-functional teams.

Allen Wonkeun Shin is a CEO in Kakaopay Corp. since 2022 and has been leading the comapny for 5 years. He joined Kakaopay in 2018 as CSO in charge of mid-to-long-term corporate strategy, investment, and other strategic problems.Before joining Kakaopay, Mr. Shin, as a principal of Bain & Company, a management consulting firm, served clients in a wide variety of industries including financial services and technology.Before MBA from Columbia Business School, he acquired in-depth experience in high-tech industry, as an account and project manager in Samsung Electronics mobile division and new business development manager in an IT venture company.

Dante leads global growth and regulatory strategy, public policy, market expansion, international operations and communications. He is a key strategic leader building our business, forging government relations and taking us into new markets. He brings decades of experience working in complex global financial and risk issues and most recently served as a founder of the Diem Association.

Nearly two decades of experience translating between technology, and economic policies and business objectives in high-intensity roles at multinationals, investment bank, and government. Spearheads complex, high-stakes strategies through direct negotiations, external-ally building, and leadership across geographically-dispersed cross-functional teams.