Goldman promotes TMT banker to MD in Seoul

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on Nov. 2 announced the promotions of two Korean executive directors in its Seoul office to managing directors (MDs), the bank's second-highest rank behind partner. SY Seok Yong Lee, head of the investment banking (IB) division, and Jamie Jieun Park, head of securities division, will become MDs as of Jan. 1, 2022.

The two Koreans are among 643 individuals across 45 global offices of Goldman Sachs, the investment bank stated. Goldman Sachs announces its new managing directors every other year, who account for 6% of its global staff. In 2017, two executive directors from the debt capital market (DCM) division, Jae Joon Choi and Jason Kim, and Eugene Kim from Goldman Sachs Asset Management, were promoted to MDs at the Seoul office. There were no promotions to MD in the Seoul branch two years ago.

Goldman Sachs hasn't promoted someone from the IB division of the Seoul office to the position of MD in 11 years. Dongsuk Choi, former co-head of Goldman Sachs in Korea and current chief executive of Seoul-based private equity firm EastBridge Partners, was the last IB professional to become an MD in the office. SY Seok Yong Lee successfully led the IPO of Kakao Pay Corp., listed on the Kospi with a market capitalization of 11.7 trillion won based on the public offering price. He is understood to have achieved high performances across all IB sectors such as merger and acquisitions (M&As) and stock issuance, as well as having expertise in tech, media, telecommunication (TMT) investment.

The listing of Korean e-commerce giant Coupang Inc. on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in March is among his achievements. The e-commerce platform raised $4.5 billion through IPO at the time, the largest amount as an NYSE-listed Asian company after the NYSE debut of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. in September 2014.

Lee was also involved in the takeover of the Korean food delivery application Woowa Brothers Corp. for $4 billion by Germany’s Delivery Hero SE, the largest M&A deal in Korea’s internet business industry to date. In addition, he worked for Softbank Corp.’s $1 billion investment in Coupang in 2015 and Kakao Corp.’s listing of $1 billion in global depositary receipts (GDRs) on the Singapore Exchange in 2018.

Lee studied business at Korea University and earned a master's in business administration from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Before joining Goldman Sachs in 2010, he worked for The Boston Consulting Group as a consultant. 

Jamie Jieun Park is known as a derivatives market expert. She has graduated from Columbia University in New York majoring in economics and mathematics and earned a master’s degree in math in finance at New York University in the US. She has worked for the UK’s Barclays corporate and investment bank division as an investor solutions sales expert, French corporate IB company Natixis as a vice president of equity derivatives sales before joining Goldman Sachs two years ago.

Goldman Sachs is one of the largest foreign investment companies in Korea and has invested more than $4 billion in the country since 1999. The Seoul office, founded in 1992, began providing comprehensive financial services in 1998 and currently has about 100 employees.

Write to Junho Cha at chacha@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.