Roh delivers expertise to ethnic Koreans
.jpg?w=728)
Roh Soon-seok, Yanbian University of Science & Technology (YUST) vice president
By Kim Tae-gyu
As far as depth and breadth of experiences are concerned, Yanbian University of Science & Technology (YUST) Vice President Roh Soon-seok would be second to none.
And since 2014, the 64-year-old has delivered his expertise to 2,000 students at the first Sino-foreign joint university in the world’s most populous country.
“It is a great pleasure to teach our students, many of whom are ethnic Koreans. I hope that they would grow to become leaders not only in China but also on the global scene,” Roh said.
In 1985, Roh joined Dacom, a fixed-line telecom operator affiliated with LG Group and now merged into LG Uplus, in its public relations team and became one of the most prominent communication experts in the industry.
He moved to Pantech, the country’s third-largest mobile phone manufacturer after Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, in 2002, to take charge of the strategic communication division.
Three years later, he went on to work at Korea Investment & Securities through 2012. Roh, who earned his masters at Yonsei University, gained a Ph.D. from Sungkyunkwan University while he was at the country’s top-tier brokerage house.
After obtaining a doctorate via intensive research on the correlation between media reports and corporate reputation, he began teaching at Sungkyunkwan University.
“We have a vague idea that articles in newspapers have a great effect on the reputation of corporations. But I wanted to confirm whether or not that was the case,” Roh said back then.
Roh was also elected as vice chairman of the Korea Public Relations Association in 2010.
After retiring from Korea Investment in 2012, he moved to YUST where more than 300 faculty members from across the world teach students from China, Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia among other countries.
A vast majority of its 2,000 collegians are Chinese who have an ethnic Korean background. They proactively take advantage of the joint programs with sister universities in Korea including Yonsei, Korea and Ewha to stay here for half a year.
“Actually, my relationship with YUST dates back to the early 1990s. As an official of Dacom, I led a project to send computers and other digital devices to the university,” Roh recollected.
“I will continue to put forth my utmost efforts for the development of YUST and our students. I am really happy with my job of studying together with young students at Yanbian.”