We are pleased to announce that KGSF Alumni Association has been established in Vietnam in May 2016. Even though we have only two alumni in Vietnam at present, we hope the association will take on the role of bringing excellent students from Vietnam to the KGSF in the future.

Professor Jisoo Kim and KCB staff members visited Vietnam and met Ha Thi Minh Hoang (FMBA 2012) in Hanoi. Le Dung Bui (FMBA 2012) could not attend the meeting because she had another meeting at the same time. They discussed establishing an Alumni Association and finally Minh Ha agreed to be in charge as the representative of the regional group. She will be managing alumni affairs for incoming and outgoing Alumni based upon mutual communications with KCB.

She also flashed back to their time in KAIST. She talked about her old classmates and their lives in KAIST. Minh Ha said: “Professor Kim looked good, like a friendly man, like a young man. I just hope you always look like that.”

Minh Ha is working for the Analysis and Forecast Department, National Center for Socio-Economic Information and Forecasting, Ministry of Planning and Investment. She said: “My job title is Fellow Researcher. It has not change before and after I graduated from KAIST. The only thing that has changed is my workload. It is at least twice as high as before.”

She also explained about her work in detail : “The education was very useful for me. I applied all the knowledge that I learned from the statistics and econometric classes at work. I participated in writing and I am the secretary for two working papers using an econometric model for Vietnam. It is a medium size model, each of which we had to prepare and write in one year, and then had to explain the results in front of the experts from the Ministry. Both got excellent evaluations. Besides, after suffering from high pressure when studying at KAIST, I think my endurance has become better. And now, even though my workload has increased, I am able to handle it, at least until now. I have not made any mistakes.”

She completed the Green Finance Track in Finance at KAIST. According to her, people are talking about the green economy and green enterprises everywhere in Vietnam. In the near future, she is going to work on green GDP and assess the impact of environmental factors on the development of the economy by building a sub-model.

Finally, when we asked about her life, she added: “I just want to say it has become more interesting. It is not easy to have friends from other countries, but KAIST gave me that chance. I was very happy to talk with Professor Kim in Hanoi, I am sure I can also give my welcome to others.”

Indeed, Professor Kim and our staff had a great time in Hanoi thanks to her hearty welcome. Director Moon commented: “I remember that she was an excellent student in terms of academic study. I was impressed that she was very good at mathematics which is important in the Finance MBA program. I was excited to meet her again and grateful for her hospitality during our stay in Vietnam.”

During the trip, the above members and the Dean of KCB, Professor Tong Suk Kim, attended the AAPBS 2016 Academic Conference held in Hanoi Vietnam. AAPBS is a unique academic association in the Asia-Pacific region, which provides a platform for elite business education leaders to share experiences among its members in order to achieve synergy. KCB is going to host the 2016 AAPBS Annual Conference in Seoul in October this year.

KGSF has been visiting our alumni’s countries to continuously organize the alumni association by region, and to encourage their activities as our international alumni increases. We expect these efforts will connect our alumni with each other and increase their engagements with the school.

*From the left in the picture
 
Hyangsook Kee, Staff of External Affair Team, KCB
JisooKim, Professor, KCB
Minh Ha, Researcher, Ministry of Planning & Investment, Vietnam (2012)
Hyunkyung Moon, Director of External Affair Team, KCB