Professor CHOI Byung Il of Ewha Womans University’s Graduate School of International Studies is a globally recognized scholar representing Korea, with both theoretical expertise and practical experience in international negotiations and trade. Since March 2025, he has been serving as the inaugural head of the Trade Strategy Innovation Hub established by Bae, Kim & Lee LLC. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics from Seoul National University and both his Master’s and Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University. Professor CHOI played a leading role in the 1992 Korea-U.S. telecommunications negotiations and the 1993 Uruguay Round service negotiations. As Korea’s chief negotiator throughout the WTO Basic Telecommunications Negotiations, he was instrumental in transitioning the Korean telecom market from a monopoly to a competitive and open system—an achievement widely credited as laying the foundation for IT Korea.