Ambassadors' Dialogue: The Importance of U.S. - Korea Alliance

Event description

Academic events
Free
Inclusion
Open to the public

Join us on Thursday, September 12, 2024 for the Ambassador's Dialogue, where the sitting U.S. Ambassador to the Republic or Korea, sitting Republic of Korea Ambassador to the U.S., and the President of Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI) discuss the importance of the U.S. - Korea alliance.

This event is sponsored by KEI and co-hosted by the Asia Center and the School of Politics and Global Studies (SPGS). Professor Meredith Woo will chair this discussion.

Speakers' Bio

Ambassador Hyundong Cho, the 28th Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to the United States of America, has had a distinguished career in the Korean Foreign Service. Most recently, he served as the First Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) from May 2022 to April 2023. He passed the 19th foreign service exam in 1985 and held various positions, such as the Second Secretary at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea in Geneva in 1991 and the First Secretary of the Korean Embassy in Mongolia in 1993. Ambassador Cho also served in the United States multiple times, as the First Secretary at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Washington DC in 1999, Director at the North American Division III of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2003, and Deputy Chief of Mission of the Korean Embassy in the United States in 2013.

In addition to his roles in the United States, Ambassador Cho has held various positions within the Korean Foreign Service. He served as the Chief Human Resource Officer at the General Affairs Division of MOFAT, Senior Administrator at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security under the Lee Myung-bak administration, Director of MOFAT's North Korea Nuclear Diplomacy Planning Division, Assistant Secretary, Director-General for the Office of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Public Diplomacy Ambassador at the MOFA under the Park Geun-hye administration.

Ambassador Cho's expertise also extends beyond diplomacy. He served as the Head of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) Investment and Technology Promotion Office (ITPO). Ambassador Cho earned his B.A. in Spanish from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

Philip S. Goldberg is the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 5, 2022. From 2019 to 2022 he served as U.S. Ambassador to Colombia. In 2018, Ambassador Goldberg served as Chargé d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, followed by a year as a Diplomat in Residence at Georgetown University.

From 2013 to 2016, Ambassador Goldberg served as U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines. Prior to that assignment, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2010-2013); U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia (2006-2008); Chief of Mission in Pristina, Kosovo (2004-2006); and Chargé d’Affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission in Santiago, Chile (2001-2004). From 2009 to 2010, Ambassador Goldberg was coordinator for the implementation of UN sanctions on North Korea. His other overseas tours included Bogota, Colombia, where he served as the Plan Colombia coordinator, and Pretoria, South Africa.

Ambassador Goldberg was a senior member of the State Department team handling the transition from the Clinton to Bush administrations and served as acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs (2000-2001) and Special Assistant and Executive Assistant to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott (1996-2000). As the Bosnia Desk Officer and Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke (1994-1996), Ambassador Goldberg was a member of the American negotiating team in the lead-up to the Dayton Peace Conference and Chief of Staff for the American delegation at Dayton.

Ambassador Goldberg holds the personal rank of Career Ambassador, the highest rank in the U.S. Foreign Service. He has received numerous awards, including Presidential Distinguished and Meritorious Service Awards; the Department’s Distinguished Honor Award and the Silver Seal Medallion for Meritorious Service in the U.S. Intelligence Community.

Ambassador Goldberg is a native of Boston, Massachusetts, and a graduate of Boston University. Before joining the Foreign Service, he served as a liaison officer between the government of the City of New York and the United Nations and Consular Community.

Scott A. Snyder is President and Chief Executive Officer at the Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI). Previously, he was a Senior Fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations from 2011 to March 2024. Mr. Snyder is the author of The United States-South Korea Alliance: Why It May Fail and Why It Must Not (December 2023) and South Korea at the Crossroads: Autonomy and Alliance in an Era of Rival Powers (January 2018). Mr. Snyder received a BA from Rice University and an MA from the regional studies East Asia program at Harvard University.

Meredith Jung-En Woo is an American academic and author. She is a Senior Fellow at the University Design Institute and a Professor of Practice at the School of Politics and Global Studies, both at Arizona State University.

She has authored and edited seven books, several published mostly under the name Meredith Woo-Cumings. They include Race to the Swift: State and Finance in Korean Industrialization (Columbia University Press, 1991), which was published under the name Jung-en Woo; Past as Prelude: History in the Making of the New World Order (Westview Press, 1991); Capital Ungoverned: Liberalizing Finance in Interventionist States (Cornell University Press, 1996), The Developmental State (Cornell University Press, 1999), as well as the co-authored report of the Presidential Report, "Building American Prosperity in the 21st Century: Report of the Presidential Commission on United States-Pacific Trade and Investment Policy" (Government Printing Office, 1997). Her book Neoliberalism and Reform in East Asia (2007) was the result of a project sponsored by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development and the Rockefeller Foundation. She also published a book of essays under the title, Something New Under the Sun: Education at Mr. Jefferson's University.