Daejin (Derik) Kim is the founder and honorary president of Global Entrepreneurs Foundation (“GEF”) and also a co-founder and partner of HSR ANGEL LLC (“HSR”) located in the Republic of Korea, which has done angel investment and company build-up. Also he is a Senator of World Business Angels Investment Forum(“WBAF”) representing Korea.

Before GEF, Mr. Kim was serial entrepreneur to found five start-ups, three of which were established in Korea, and two in the USA. Also he has served as CEO and Executive officer of several companies in Korea and USA, including EVP of Talon-International, Inc. During his career, he has worked as International sales man and global marketing specialist for 14 years, besides his entrepreneurship experience.

Since 2015, he concentrates on making GEF the Gateway between Korea, Asia and Global start-ups ecosystem and so is serving globally as a supporter of EWB based in Sweden, partner of Faster Capital in UAE, Co-organizer of EU Startup week and Board of IKEDB, and from 2021, he has been working as the WBAF Global Startup Committee's Asia and Middle East Subcommittee Co-President and the World Business Angel Week Asia Continental Chairperson. He is also global speaker, mentor and juror at many international/national conferences in Turkey, Malta, Spain, Australia, India, China, Vietnam, Rwanda etc. and Korea. He has also advised on UNDP Africa Youth Connect research as well as Korean ODA projects and policy consulting related to startup ecosystems in countries such as Rwanda, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Recently, he is making efforts to globalize the Korean startup ecosystem, and as part of this, he was designated as a global startup ecosystem leader by StartupBlink, a global startup ecosystem cluster indexing site.