Education
Hankook University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Diplomacy and English Language. Konkook University Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul, Organizational Management. Asia Institute of Management, Manila, Management Development. New York University, International Studies. Spoken languages: English, Korean.
Career
Chin-Min Lee is currently the Special Representative of the Asian Forest Cooperation Organization (AFoCO) to the International Organizations and the Permanent Observer to the United Nations (Vienna).. He is also a Senior Advisor to the Executive Director of AFoCO since 2019, an intergovernmenal organization headquartered in Seoul. He has been promoting strategic partnerships with the United Nations system and other International Organizations, including private sector and funding agencies, as well as major countries outside the Asian region. In 2020, the General Assembly of the United Nations granted AFoCO a Permanent Observer status to the General Assembly. He had also invited the Camerata Salzburg, one of best chamber orchestras in Europe, to serve as Goodwill Ambassador of AFoCO in combating the climate change.
He had served the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) for over three decades in various capacities at different duty stations, such as Port Moresby, Manila, New York, Geneva and Vienna. He was the WHO Deputy Special Representative to the United Nations in New York, a strategic and diplomatic advisor to the WHO Director General in Geneva, and the WHO Special Representative to the United Nations and other International Organizations, and Director of WHO in Vienna.
After WHO, he worked for the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), an international multidisplinary research institute, Laxenburg, Austria, as the Special Advisor to its Director General and Chief Executive Officer on strategic, political and diplomatic matters. During his 18 years stay, he had ambitiously initiated expansion of IIASA membership from 9 to 24 members, joined by namely Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Republic of Korea, South Africa, United Kingdom and Vietnam (Australia, Malaysia, Mexico and Pakistan left later), dramatically increasing its regular budget and making IIASA from an euro-centric to a truely global institution.. He also promoted partnership between science and arts, encouraging the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the bests in the world, to become the Goodwill Ambassador of IIASA globally.
He is also a columnist, an adjunct professor of the Korea University and a visiting professor of the Konkook University in Seoul