Education
Chin-Min Lee received his early higher education at the Hankook University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, where he majored in Diplomacy and English Language, building a solid foundation for his future international career. He continued his studies at the Graduate School of Public Administration of Konkook University, also in Seoul, earning a degree in Organizational Management that deepened his understanding of public institutions and administrative systems.
To further strengthen his managerial and leadership capacities, he completed the Management Development Program at the Asia Institute of Management in Manila. Later, his academic pursuits took him to the New York University, where he undertook advanced studies in International Studies, broadening his perspective on global affairs and cross-cultural diplomacy.
He is fluent in English and 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 system (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, major countries outside the Asian region, funding agencies and private sectors. 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 finest chamber orchestras in Europe, to serve as a 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 system and other International Organizations, and the Director of WHO in Vienna.
After WHO, he joined 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 programs and projects and making IIASA from an euro-centric to a truely global institution.. He also promoted partnership between science and arts, inviting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the finest in the world, to serve as 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
