Private Equity

A self-described ‘school nerd’ changed his career focus from educator to investments advisor as the fastest path to financial success to enable helping others. 

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Michael ByungJu Kim (BK) was born in South Korea. 

CHILDHOOD

BK grew up in Seoul, South Korea before his family emigrated to New Jersey when he was a teenager. Soon he became a U.S. citizen. To learn to speak English, BK’s father suggested that he “read books” so BK read many novels and became proficient in both reading and speaking the English language.

EDUCATION 

As a high school student, BK was the only Asian in his classes, as he said: “certainly the only Korean. But there was some ethnic and cultural diversity. I wouldn’t have been conscious of this at the time, but I think I was probably the classic nerd. Or I would have been if it weren’t for my Taekwondo ability as a Black Belt.”

BK was interested in attending Haverford College due to its reputation for providing high-quality liberal arts courses. During a campus visit, he enjoyed seeing the school’s large duck pond, which recalled a childhood vision of his first home in Korea. BK majored in English “because of my love of books.”

He graduated from Haverford College with a degree in English, followed by an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) from Harvard Business School. He was then awarded a Fulbright Scholarship. 

FIRST ADULT JOBS ARE NEVER A BINDING CAREER COMMITMENT

Having earned his MBA, BK was hired by a well-known financial investment firm, Salomon Smith Barney, where he was eventually appointed Managing Director and COO (Chief Operating Officer) of the firm’s Asia-Pacific Investment Banking. 

Based on BK’s growing reputation within the financial services industry, he was offered – and accepted – the Presidency of the Carlyle Group’s Asia investments division. But within the same year (2005), BK decided he could take a reasonable business risk by starting his own investment firm, which he named after himself: MBK Partners. Since then, his business has grown to manage over $30 billion in assets, raising $6.5 billion for its ‘Fund V’, which made MBK Partners the largest independent private equity firm in Asia. 

The most notable of MBK Partners’ financial moves were to take over ING Korea, which led to the first time a private equity owned company was listed on the trading exchanges in South Korea. In Japan, MK and his firm acquired Godiva Japan in one of the largest deals in the consumer sector in Japan’s history. In Chima, BK and his firm acquired eHi Car Services, one of the largest car rentals and services companies in China. 

FINANCE WAS NOT THIS BUSINESSPERSON’S FIRST CAREER GOAL

As BK stated to a news reporter when interviewed upon becoming chairman of the Board of Trustees of Haverford College, “I didn’t discuss my aspirations as a college student. I’m an accidental banker, accidental finance guy. I wanted to be an academic, to teach or to be a writer, which I considered noble callings. I figured out pretty early on in my investment banking career that this was the quickest way for me to get to a level of having success and be able to make an impact on society by giving back…Throughout this journey, I felt compelled to write a book and have it published. 

The book, BK’s first novel, is titled Offerings. The main character, DaeJoon, is an investment banker from Seoul who works on Wall Street, closely mirroring the author’s own life and experiences. The process of writing a book took BK over two decades to complete. 

“Your perspective changes as you go from a 30-some-year-old to a 50-some-year-old. I looked back on my original writing, and I couldn’t really recognize the young man who seemed so angry at the injustices of the world. I wanted to be true to the evolving perspective and the different voices I gave to my protagonist.” 

FINANCIAL SUCCESS PROVIDES THE OPPORTUNITY TO HELP OTHERS – THIS DONOR FOCUSED ON PROVIDING LEADERSHIP IN ‘ETHICS EDUCATION’

In early 2024, BK, once named “the godfather of Asian private equity,” gave a $25 million gift to Haverford College to start a new Institute for Ethical Inquiry & Leadership. The Institute was his idea, which he related to the President of Haverford College, who collaborated with BK for the best ways to make the financial gift most effective. It was the President’s idea to have the Institute’s goals spread across many academic disciplines at the college. BK wanted to make the effect even more expansive, to have a global reach. 

Applying the goals to actual practice meant, for BK, renewing the college’s focus on academic excellence by hiring the best faculty, enrolling the best students and distinguishing the Haverford academic experience from so many other good liberal arts colleges by such measures as increasing the college’s endowment (savings) and having the Institute promote “leadership in ethical education.” 

BK noted that Middlebury College (in Vermont) is known internationally for its languages education. He wants the Institute to train and send out ethics missionaries to the world. 

“Look around,” said BK, “ethics are even more important, given all the turmoil in the world including on our college campuses. I’m a free speech advocate. The more speech, the better. My father used to say that protests are the flowers of democracy, which has meaning if you consider my first country, Korea…. Until the late 1980s, we were ruled by a succession of military generals in an autocratic system. The way we destroyed that system and became a liberal democracy is through student protest. So, I believe in the power of protests.”

“The trick or the challenge of negotiating the current situation of student protests on many college campuses, involving pro-Palestinian encampments, is to draw the line at ‘hate speech’……….whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia or any other form of hate speech…… must be discouraged. That’s where I draw the line, which is a tough line to draw.”

CAREER SATISFACTION

Aside from earning a personal fortune plus the respect of the international business community and financial sector critics, BK notes that what gets him out of bed in the morning is ‘Life.’ He recalls an old line from the poet Wordsworth: “‘Bliss was in that dawn to be alive.’ I feel really fortunate to be alive and doing what I do with the family that I have.”

When BK was asked if he had a motto he uses to live by, he responded: 

“Be grateful. Be humble. Be seated.”

This career story was based on several sources including a news article written by Susan Snyder, published by The Philadelphia Inquirer on July 16, 2024 plus internet research, including Wikipedia.