Dr. Rhee received his BA from Seoul National University Law School, MBA from Rutgers University, and Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. He is holding the K. J. Luke Distinguished Professor of International Banking and Finance. He served as the managing editor of the Pacific-Basin Finance Journal from 1993-2017, a premier academic journal focusing on Asia-Pacific capital markets and financial systems. He is currently holding a Chair Professorship at the National Central University of Taiwan and he served as adjunct professor at Monash University (Australia) in 2011-2017.

He served as the president of the Asian Finance Association for a two-year period, 2014-2016. He was the founding president of the Pacific-Basin Financial Management Society, an academic association created to promote research on the region’s financial and capital markets. He also served as a board member of the U.S. Financial Management Association. He served as Program Chair of the Annual Pacific-Basin Finance Conferences, 1989-1997 and of the Asian Finance Association Annual Meetings, 2010-2012. He served as the chairman of the Asian Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (ASFRC) in 2004-2007. The ASFRC is a part of the Global Shadow Financial Regulatory Committees which include the committees of United States, Europe, Japan, Latin America, Australia/New Zealand, and Asia. The ASFRC is charged to identify and analyze developing trends and ongoing events in Asia that may affect the efficiency and safe operation of financial markets and the financial services industry. ASFRC translates concepts drawn from academic research into concrete policy recommendations.

He served as the dean (2008-2011) of the SKKU Business School in Seoul, Korea to initiate various reform programs to upgrade its research programs while he was on leave from University of Hawai’i. During his tenure, he successfully led the SKKU Business School to be accredited by the AACSB in 2009. He was Resident Scholar (1997-1999) of the Asian Development Bank. As Resident Scholar of the Bank, he spearheaded research programs on Asian financial crisis, mortgage-backed securities markets, and government bond markets. He was also involved with financial sector reform programs for Thailand, Indonesia, and Korea as part of the International Monetary Fund’s support packages. He was a key member of the Bank team which created a regional economic monitoring program and this program eventually led to the creation of the Office of Economic Integration. He also served as a visiting research professor at the Hitotsubashi University (Japan), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, University of Malaya, Renmin University (China), National Central University (Taiwan), and National University of Malaysia. He was the Tun Ismail Mohamed Ali Distinguished Chair in Investment and Finance of National University of Malaysia in 2005.

His research has been published or forthcoming in numerous academic journals, including: Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of International Money and Finance, Journal of Financial Markets, Journal of Empirical Finance, Journal of Financial Services Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Risk and Insurance, Journal of International Business Studies, Decision Sciences, Financial Management, etc. He has published 117 academic papers and edited or authored 18 books on Asian financial markets.

Dr. Rhee was a founding member and board member of the Ohana Pacific Bank, which is a state-chartered bank and serves ethnic minority business communities (Korean, Chinese, Philippine, Viet Nam, and Indonesian) in Hawaii. The Bank has been in business since June 2006. He consulted for a number of international institutions such as Asian Development Bank, Asian Development Bank Institute, International Chamber of Commerce, International Monetary Fund, Mexican Ministry of Finance and Public Credits, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, U.S. Agency for International Development, Bursa Malaysia (formerly Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange), Jakarta Stock Exchange, and MIR Asset Management Ltd. of Australia. He received the 2020 Life Time Achievement Award from the China International Risk Forum, the 2013 Eminent Scholar Award from the Korea America Finance Association, and the 2001 Archimedes Award from University of Catania (Sicily) and Erasmus University (Netherlands) for his contribution to academic research on Asian capital markets.

Professor Jun-Koo Kang is Canon Professor/Distinguished Professor of Finance at Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He is head of the division of banking and finance at NBS. Prior to joining NTU, he was the MSU Federal Credit Union Endowed Chair in Financial Institutions and Investments at Michigan State University. Professor Kang is an expert in the areas of corporate governance, banking, capital raising, emerging financial markets, and international finance. His research has been published in leading academic journals, including Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, American Economic Review, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Management Science, Accounting Review, Journal of International Business Studies, and Pacific-Basin Finance Journal. As a prolific researcher, Professor Kang has received many awards and recognition and currently serves as a co-editor of Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, and an associate editor of Financial Management, Japan and the World Economy, and Asia-Pacific Journal of Financial Studies. He is also a senior fellow and a member of executive council of the Asia Bureau of Finance and Economics Research, a research fellow of the Asian Institute of Corporate Governance, and a member of World Economic Forum Expert Network. Professor Kang received his Ph.D. in finance from the Ohio State University.

Takeshi Yamada is a Professor of Finance. His research spans asset pricing and corporate finance, with a particular interest in Asian financial markets and institutions. Takeshi has explored the role of individual, institutional and foreign investors in the Japanese stock market, and how employees and banks affect corporate behaviour in Japan. He has also studied the various roles played by the government in the Japanese and Chinese private corporate sector, including government ownership, personnel exchange and government subsidies. His research has been funded through schemes run by the Ministry of Education Singapore and Research Grants Committee Hong Kong, among others, and has been published in journals such as Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Review of Corporate Finance Studies and Journal of Business. Takeshi is an elected board member of the Asian Finance Association and serves as Associate Editor of several Asian-based journals including Pacific-Basin Finance Journal and Asia-Pacific Journal of Financial Studies.

Dr. Gillan is an internationally recognized scholar in the field of corporate finance and corporate governance. His experience includes time as Associate Chief Economist at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and Senior Research Fellow with the TIAA-CREF Institute. He has held academic appointments at Arizona State University, Texas Tech University, the University of Delaware, the University of Georgia, the University of Hong Kong, and the University of Otago. He has also been a visiting scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Renmin University, University of Canterbury, University of Florida, and a William Evans Fellow at the University of Otago.
Dr. Gillan has written and published extensively on corporate finance and corporate governance topics including corporate audit fees, corporate restructuring, directors’ and officers’ liability insurance, executive compensation, ownership structure and shareholder value, shareholder activism, shareholder voting, and the structure and activity of corporate boards. His research has been published in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Risk and Insurance and the Journal of Corporate Finance, amongst others. He has received best paper awards from academic finance groups including the Financial Management Association International, the Indian School of Business Center for Analytical Finance, and the Western Finance Association. Dr. Gillan has also held editorial positions at the Journal of Corporate Finance, Review of Financial Studies, and Accounting and Finance.
His teaching expertise includes corporate finance classes ranging from introductory and advanced corporate finance to case-study based classes and special topics including corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, and sustainable finance in a combination of Executive MBA, full-time MBA, Professional MBA, and undergraduate settings. In addition, he has been involved in the development and delivery of custom executive education programs and directors’ colleges.
Dr. Gillan’s Ph.D.is from the Graduate School of Business at the University of Texas, Austin. His Bachelor of Commerce (Honors) and Masters of Commerce degrees are from the University of Otago, New Zealand.