Geoffrey See on Training North Korea's Startups, Almost Dying Twice & Keeping The Faith - E5

"When you have a personal mission in your life and you let it shine in a way that you live and breathe it, people are attracted to it. People see the dedication and the passion, and they want to help in many ways."​ - Geoffrey See

Geoffrey See is the founder and chairman of Choson Exchange. Over the past 12 years, he built the leading grassroots-led organization driving economic change in North Korea. He has trained over 2000 North Koreans in entrepreneurship, economic policy and law. He has also distributed teaching materials to over 10,000 North Koreans. His work has introduced a generation of North Koreans to international practices. He has also contributed to enterprise reform, the establishment of special economic zones, and the reforming of legal property rights. Geoffrey also advises the South Korean government on the Kaesong Industrial Complex, a joint manufacturing zone, collaboratively built and manage by North and South Korea. His work has been written up as a Harvard Business School case study, which he helps teach to Harvard MBAs in the Global Capitalism class by Professor Sophus Reinert. He has survived two near-death experiences in his work in North Korea.

Geoffrey is a Kauffman Fellow in venture capital. He is also passionate about technologies for financial inclusion and data. He co-founded CirCO, the leading co-working space business in Vietnam. He also helped establish HGX, a securities exchange in Singapore built on blockchain technology. Most recently he is at Trusting Social, providing identity solutions for the unbanked in emerging markets, through AI and facial recognition technologies. He also worked as a management consultant at Bain & Co. in Boston on big data retail and private equity.

Geoffrey graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Economics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also did and completed a Master of Arts in East Asian studies at Yale University. He was also an exchange student at Tsinghua University. On the side, he enjoys current affairs, running and traveling. You can follow him on Twitter @Geoffrey_See.

Find the show notes and transcript at https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/geoffrey-see

You can find our community discussions for this episode at https://club.jeremyau.com/c/podcasts/5-geoffrey-see-founder-and-chairman-of-choson-exchange