SUNGKYUNKWAN UNIVERSITY (SKKU), SEOUL, KOREA
On November 11th at 10:30 AM, in a telelecture room at Dasan Hall of Economics in Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, 100 students' eyes were focused on a large screen in the front. A man appeared on the screen who Prof. Young-ju Nielsen from SKKU's College of Economics introduced as Mr. Justin Jang. Prof. Nielsen explained, "Mr. Jang is living in New." The time difference between New York and Seoul is fourteen hours. Mr. Jang, who is supervising all investments in an investment management firm located in the financial capital of the world 'Wall Street,' started by saying, "I just got off work and came to the camera," and gave an hour-long lecture on the flow of world financial markets.
Prof. Nielsen then began discussing a 'Special Lecture in Economics' from last September. During the first week Prof. Nielsen was to give a lecture on the theory of economics and finance, and the second week the professor was to provide off-field stories from economics experts in Wall Street, the financial capital of the world. Four financial experts from Wall Street came to the lecture room personally by travelling across the sea, and two more experts delivered video lectures over the telelecture system. Some of the distinguished financial experts that gave lectures included Ben Meng (China), who responsible for asset allocation for the 'California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS)' which is the largest public pension in America, Francois Jeulin (France), who is responsible for trading at 'Merrill Lynch Bank of America, and more.
For Wall Street businesspeople 'time is gold'. The professionals who came to Prof. Nielsen's lecture did so at their own expense, covering their airfare, hotel stays, and other costs. They also did not take the fee provided by the university (400,000 Korean won). This was made possible due to the lasting relationships Prof. Nielsen made with the individuals while she worked on Wall Street. Prof. Nielsen explains, "Even before the semester began, all eight people I requested for the lecture wholeheartedly agreed to come."
Prof. Nielsen graduated in Economics at Yonsei University in 1995 and went on to study in the United States. She earned a Ph.D. in Statistics at the University of Pittsburgh and acquired sixteen years of career experience on Wall Street. Due to this experience, people who first meet her often assume she was born in a rich family with a silver spoon in her mouth. However, Prof. Nielsen said, "When I went abroad to study, I had only 2 million won my mother gave me, and this was all the support I received from my family."
Prof. Nielsen explained that when she attended Yonsei University she studied computers and mathematics while her friends were preparing for jobs. When getting an MBA became popular, she chose statistics. She said that for her tuition and relocation and initial expenses, she worked at a company in Korea for six months before going abroad.
In the late 1990s when she was studying in US, the financial industry there which was based on computers and statistics began to grow even bigger. Prof. Nielsen also decided to take her career into finance, but there was a glass ceiling for women and foreigners on Wall Street back then. At her first job, an American colleague laughed at her English pronunciation. Sometimes she was not even invited to client meetings that she needed to attend. Prof. Nielsen said, "Even though I felt it was unreasonably discriminatory, I eventually knew there was no other way but to prove myself and fight back."
From then on she studied theories in economics and statistics for two hours every day before going to work. With all of her hard work, she was able to find employment at famous financial firms like Barclays Global Investments and J.P. Morgan and at one point managed bonds that amounted to six trillion won. The reason why Prof. Nielsen had lectures with Wall Street professionals was to show her students the opportunities she gained from her experiences. Prof. Nielsen said, "Nowadays many young people have pessimistic attitudes about their situations and complain about clay or silver spoons standing in their ways. I want to show them that an individual's background is not as important as hard work."
