REUNIONS 2004

Son of a Korean diplomat posted in Senegal, Youngsuk “Y.S.” Chi arrived in the United States at 15, speaking little English. After three years at Lawrenceville, he was admitted to Princeton’s Class of 1983 as an engineering major, only to graduate in 1982 an economics major. Recalling how his Princeton community “embraced” him and became his family, Chi says, “I owe Princeton more than I can describe.”

Chi went from Princeton to Columbia Business School where he earned his MBA in 1984. He embarked on his 8 year career in international banking as Chief of Staff of American Express Bank in New York City. After starting up a group that pioneered debt-to-equity conversion in heavily indebted Latin American countries, he continued on to London, Paris and Singapore. Fluent in four languages and semi-proficient in two others, Chi relished the challenges of adapting to life in different countries and now considers himself a “multi-local” person with a diverse background of many nations.

For the following decade, he worked at Ingram Industries, a company owned by the family of his best friend at Princeton. In 1992 he joined Ingram Micro, Inc., the world’s largest distributor of micro computer products and led its European operations from Belgium and France, then its Asian operations from Singapore and California. In 1996 he moved to Tennessee where he became the Chief Operating Officer of Ingram Book Group where he co-founded Lighting Sources, an on-demand digital book producer and distributor, an example of Chi’s extensive exploration of the applications of technology to business.

In 2001, Chi moved on to become the President and Chief Operating Officer of Random House Inc., the world’s leading trade book publisher. Currently, he works in New York, Tokyo, and Seoul as Chairman of Random House Asia. In merely 2 years, “Random House Kodansha” and “Random House JoongAng” were born in joint ventures with the leading local publishers.

Chi describes himself as a “multi-tasker” who is the “luckiest man in the world” to have benefited from fine education, exceptional mentors and exciting work opportunities, and he has applied his energy to a variety of projects outside of his work. He helped found the Korean School of Nashville, a weekend school to educate students in their Korean heritage, and feels that this undertaking has been one of the “most interesting and rewarding things” he has ever done. Last year, he also helped found the Korean American Community Foundation in the Greater New York area to cater to non-profit organizations that service Korean American immigrants and their neighborhoods. These are examples of over a dozen boards he has been involved with over the past decade.

In his many travels and varied endeavors, Chi has maintained and treasured his ties to Princeton. In Singapore, Belgium, the United States, and currently in Korea, he has served as the Chairman of the Alumni Schools Committee or the local Princeton Club. On campus, he currently serves as a trustee of Princeton University Press, McCarter Theatre, and the Asian American Alumni Association of Princeton. He is also an active member of CTNAT, CPUC, East Asian Studies Advisory Council, and Ivy Club. Devoted to Princeton, Chi considers its tradition of service its “great tradition.” Princeton’s present challenge, he believes, is to contribute “on a broader stage to more areas of the world.” With the help of modern technology, he argues, “we can grow the scope and influence of our campus, not physically with bricks and mortar, but electronically,” thereby “attracting the best and brightest minds, not only from within the U.S., but from all over the world.”
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As Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Andrea Jung has directed the successful transformation of Avon Products Inc. by defining its vision as the company for women. She is revitalizing Avon’s reputation as the world’s foremost direct seller of beauty products while leading the company into exciting new lines of business, launching a series of bold and image-enhancing initiatives, and expanding career opportunities for women around the world.

She was elected chairman in September 2001 and has been CEO since November 1999. Previously, she was President and Chief Operating Officer, responsible for all Avon business units worldwide. She has been a member of the Board of Directors since January 1998.

Jung joined Avon in January 1994 as President, Product Marketing Group, Avon U.S. In 1996, she was promoted to President, Global Marketing, and was later named by Brandweek magazine as one of its Marketers of the Year. In 1997, she was promoted to Executive Vice President and President, Global Marketing and New Business, responsible for Avon's research and development, market research, strategic planning and joint ventures and alliances.

Before joining Avon, she was Executive Vice President at Neiman Marcus, responsible for accessories, cosmetics and women's, intimate and children’s apparel. Earlier in her career, she was Senior Vice President, General Merchandising Manager, for I. Magnin in San Francisco.

In March 2001, Jung became the first woman elected chair of the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association. She serves on the Board of Directors of the General Electric Company and is a member of the International Advisory Board of Salomon Smith Barney. She is also a member of the New York Presbyterian Hospital Board of Trustees, and the Catalyst Board of Directors.

In 1997, Advertising Age magazine bestowed on Jung the National Outstanding Mother Award and named her one of the "25 Women to Watch." In 1998, the American Advertising Federation inducted her into the Advertising Hall of Fame. In 2002, Time Magazine/CNN declared her one of the 25 Most Influential Global Executives, and in January 2003, she was featured on the cover of Business Week as one of the best managers of the year. She has been named among Fortune magazine's "50 most powerful women in business" for six consecutive years, and was most recently ranked #3 on the list.

Kuwayama’s father has been an inspiration to him. When his father’s family lumber business was wiped out with a “tsunami” (typhoon), his father and four brothers scattered. His father and one brother emigrated to the U.S. His father became a cook and general handyman in the J.W. Thompson household in New York. His various entrepreneurial ventures included a Japanese employment agency, a movie theater in Atlantic City, and different restaurants. “Yama,” as his father was called, went back to visit Thompson, who said, “You are an amazing person. Your enterprises are all unrelated and inconsistent. You should concentrate on why the businesses failed and learn from each failure.” During the 1907 panic he finally made enough money in the stock market to return to Japan, marry Kelly’s mother, return to the States to run an import-export business of Japanese foodstuffs and artifacts, and put all his children through college.

After Kuwayama was accepted by Princeton, he became a member of The School of Public and International Affairs, now known as the Woodrow Wilson School, since it offered courses in preparation for careers in which he was interested such as business, government and journalism. He was also able to get to know fellow students reflecting diverse family socio-economic backgrounds in union leadership, government, theater, science, and business.

After Princeton, he served in the US army during World War II, and then attended Harvard Business School. He wrote directly to companies on the N.Y. Stock Exchange and landed a job with Western Electric Co., a manufacturing subsidiary of AT&T, as a statistician with the cash budget department. He met Minoru Segawa of Nomura Securities Co. who offered him a job in the New York office. However, he soon discovered that if he wanted a future promotion, he would have to work in Japan and accept the going wage for university graduates. Therefore, he worked in Japan and subsequently became General Manager in the US. He worked with other investment banks in various underwritings as well as trading in Japanese securities.

In experiencing prejudice in the Army and in the business world, he had to be aware of his own self identity as an American of Japanese ancestry and the perception of mainstream Americans of the Japanese. Nothing more graphically emphasized this than his treatment as a draftee in the US Army. He was placed in the 248th Coast Artillery in January 1941 which was assigned the task of harbor defense of New York City. The map of New York Harbor with cross fire from various batteries was available to him. The General who came on an inspection tour asked Pvt. Kuwayama his name. The next day he was transferred to Madison Barracks, NY and made a requisition clerk. A year or so later, when Pearl Harbor happened in December 1941, he was transferred to the Medics. He then applied for ASTP, Army Student Training Program, and was denied. He also applied for the three month Officer Candidate School, since his IQ was sufficiently high, but he was denied again. After the 442nd all Nisei (second generation Japanese American) Regimental Combat Team was formed, he was transferred there, as a medic, and went overseas with them. He received his Silver Star and Purple Heart with them. There were Nisei ROTC officers but a great many became officers through battlefield commissions for outstanding leadership, valor, loyalty and patriotism. Later in the US Army, due to the established record of patriotism by Nisei Army units, there were many Nisei officers throughout the Armed Forces as evidenced by General Shinseki, former Army Chief of Staff.

The Office of Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) was formed in the U.S. Department of Commerce to protect U.S. gold supply which was being depleted by U.S. companies investing abroad. Kuwayama applied after seeing an employment advertisement in the Wall street Journal and was hired. The OFDI was abolished when the U.S. foreign exchange rate was permitted to float, so he joined the Securities & Exchange Commission as an economist, specializing in foreign capital markets. He retired from the SEC in 1985. From his government experiences, he has observed that the Civil Rights movement was the fundamental motivator for the US Government to hire and promote minorities. Education and work experience, however, are basic. He found that in 1940 and 1946 after the war, it was difficult to obtain a job with the US Government. Nevertheless after the Civil Rights movement, he applied in 1968, and was hired. After his retirement, he received a Presidential Appointment as a board member of the US Civil Liberties Education Fund under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Kuwayama also feels deeply rooted in his Asian heritage. He therefore established at Princeton a student aid fund for Asians through a charitable trust fund.
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The trajectory of my life was set in motion before I was born," says Rajiv Vinnakota '93, President and Chairman of the Board of the D.C.-based SEED Foundation (Schools for Educational Evolution and Development). "My grandfather, a farmer in a small village in India, spent 24 of the 30 rupees he earned each month to send his six children to school. All went on to college and immigrated to the United States." At Princeton, Vinnakota says, he was "determined to get the most" out of his college education, and he graduated with both a BA in Molecular Biology and a certificate from the Woodrow Wilson School, one of only two students in his class to complete requirements for two majors.

Upon leaving Princeton, Vinnakota joined Mercer Management Consulting where he worked for three years "learning the ins and outs of business, management, and finance." Early in his management consulting stint, however, he was already pondering his next career move. "Though I loved the experience," he recalls, "I realized that this sort of work would not allow me to leave the social footprint that I wanted to leave. I wanted to help people who might not make it otherwise." Having benefited from his parents’ unwavering conviction in the importance of education, Vinnakota turned his focus to improving education for urban children.

It is no secret that urban schools fail to educate enormous numbers of their students," says Vinnakota. "It was clear to me and a group of my Princeton friends, discussing just this problem at our first Reunion, that the present models simply weren't working for many urban children." This discussion yielded the idea of a public boarding school designed to serve the most disadvantaged urban students, those most desperately in need of safe housing, supervision, and nurturing education.

In 1997 Vinnakota left Mercer Consulting and opened the first SEED school 18 months later. "We began with 40 seventh-graders, a charter from the D.C. government, a few hundred thousand dollars and a lot of hopes," recalls Vinnakota. "Six years later we have 300 students in grades seven through twelve, a $26 million campus with attractive, state of the art facilities, staffed by top-notch teachers and full of inner-city children who are acquiring the skills they need to get into and succeed in college-and in life.” The School is graduating its senior class this year, and 100% of its seniors have been accepted to colleges, including Princeton, Stanford, Penn, Duke, Georgetown, Cornell, Howard, Spelman, Xavier, and many more. SEED has been approached by a number of localities to start similar schools, and now is crafting a national expansion strategy.

Vinnakota's efforts have earned him considerable recognition, including the Princeton Club of Washington's 2002 Community Service Award. Last year he was also named a "Washingtonian of the Year" by Washingtonian Magazine and received the Oprah Winfrey Show's "Use Your Life" Award. In 2001 he was named in Business Forward Magazine's "Next Network" of 40 up-and-coming leaders. He also received the Manhattan Institute's Outstanding Social Entrepreneurship Award and was named to the first North American Class of Fellows by the Ashoka Foundation.

Many of Vinnakota's extracurricular activities also revolve around children and education, and he serves as Trustee and Treasurer of the Empower Program, Inc., a non-profit organization working with youth to "end the culture of violence." He has also conscientiously maintained his ties to Princeton through the years, co-chairing Annual Giving's Project '93 and co-chairing his Fifth Reunion. He has interviewed students for the Alumni Schools Committee and has served on the National Schools Committee.

Contributing both a business and a not-for-profit perspective to his Princeton activities, Vinnakota welcomes the opportunity to serve the university that gave him his own education. "Never for a moment did I - or do I - take that for granted," he says.
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Qui came alone to America at the age of thirteen in 1975 as a refugee after the fall of South Vietnam. Separated from his family in the midst of the mass exodus, Qui was placed with distant relatives who adopted him and raised him until 1981, when he was reunited with his father, a former government official who managed to escape his own reeducation camp ordeal. Not knowing a single word of English, Qui sat still in class and was tutored after school by Catholic nuns at the local convent through their common knowledge of the French language. The oldest son of six, he quickly assimilated, and thrived within the American culture and its dynamic society of freedom and democracy. With Qui leading by example and setting the standard, his younger siblings successively escaped Vietnam by boat, risking their own lives in search of personal freedom and liberty, and applied themselves with great intensity to also benefit from their own high quality education at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Berkeley. Qui did not see his mother again until the age of thirty.

“… My brothers, my sisters, and I are so grateful for the opportunities to challenge ourselves not only to survive and persevere, but to also thrive and succeed under challenging conditions, to earn an opportunity to contribute and share in the tremendous social-economic evolution of this great country. My Princeton education affects everything that I do in life today. It radically accelerates and elevates my own personal growth and development… My multidimensional Princeton experience transforms, molded, and expanded my capacities for observing, reasoning, creating, sharing, and doing, with unparalleled freedom, clarity, and passion.”

Qui comes back to his 21st Reunion at Princeton with over 20 years of experience in finance and portfolio management, specializing in the pioneering aspects of financial engineering, portfolio architecture, investment management strategy. Qui spent his entire professional career working in various capacities in the investment management industry: as a commercial hedger, portfolio manager (risk, return, as well as cost management), private investor, financial advisor, small business entrepreneur, institutional investment fiduciary, community volunteer/activist, and industry advocate.

“Princeton has given me the nurturing environment to develop intellectually and socially. My education sustained me with great standards and ideals. Princeton supplies my propensity for volunteerism and service. Princeton stimulates my independent thinking, and then empowers my abilities to embrace others’ innovative ideas, to develop fresh solutions, to challenge conventional wisdom and false beliefs, and to create successful paradigm shifts. Princeton inspires me in my continuing quest for excellence at the leading edge of progress. My lifelong friends, my mentors, my benefactors, my competitors, and my supporters from Princeton contributed to how I could achieve so much so quickly early in my life. Looking back, I could not have been a victim, but rather a beneficiary of extraordinary circumstances. How does one reciprocate such a monumental endowment in one’s life?”

Qui is a graduate of the Operations Research and Financial Engineering (ORFE) program. He received his B.S.E. in Civil Engineering in 1984. During his sophomore year, Qui was elected to serve as class of ‘84 Secretary-Treasurer, and became a member of the Ivy Club. Summer internships with Procter & Gamble led to his senior thesis: Quantitative Methods for Test Marketing New Consumer Products. After receiving invaluable training and work experience at Procter & Gamble, Thomson McKinnon Securities, and Legg Mason, Qui established his own investment management company in 1995. Qui spent his lifelong career devoted to discovering new ideas and technologies that secure a better tomorrow for humanity. In 1995, Qui conceived and devised “Multidimensional Alpha Integration,” a contrarian approach for “absolute return” investing, while conventional wisdom favors exuberance toward “momentum investing” within a “relative return” paradigm. His work in designing “synthetic portfolios” and introducing the use of “optionality” as a strategic vehicle for institutional investors is gaining considerable attention, along with his well known initiatives in establishing a worldwide “think tank” and industry collaborative network called the Global Investment Management Consortium.

Qui served as elected Chairman of the Asian-American Coalition of Houston from 1998 to 2000, after having been elected to serve 3 consecutive terms as Vice President of the Vietnamese-American Community Association from 1988 to 1994. From 1998 to 2001, Qui took a sabbatical from managing private wealth to serve as the Mayor’s appointed representative and trustee, on the Board of the Houston Police Officers’ Pension System (HPOPS), a $2 Billion public pension fund with a diversified investment portfolio. In 2001, Qui was elected to serve as Chairman of the National Association of Investment Fiduciaries (NAIF), a private not-for-profit association formed by concerned fiduciaries to advocate volunteerism and activism through investor education and the establishment of best practices standards in institutional investment management.

In addition to various corporate and foundation boards outside of Princeton, Qui also serves on the advisory board of the CAIA association, the members of which hold the Chartered Alternative Investment Management Analyst (CAIA) professional designation. Qui regularly appears as a speaker, moderator, and panelist at major institutional investment conferences held in the U.S, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Qui is married to Keiko Nishimura of Tokyo, Japan, and they have one daughter, Angelina, who hopes to be good and lucky enough to qualify for admission as a proud member of the class of 2018.
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