President Yoon Appoints Cho Tae-yong as Ambassador to the U.S. and Baek Kyung-ran as Director of the Disease Control Agency (Update)

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] On the 17th, President Yoon Seok-yeol appointed Cho Tae-yong, a member of the People Power Party, as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States. Kim So-young, a professor in the Department of Economics at Seoul National University, was appointed as Vice Chairman of the Financial Services Commission, and Baek Kyung-ran, a professor at Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, was appointed as Commissioner of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.

Rep. Cho graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in Political Science and is a career diplomat who joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He served as the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Peace and Security Negotiation Office on the Korean Peninsula, the ministry’s First Vice Minister, and the First Deputy Director of the National Security Office. In the 2020 21st general election, he became a member of the People Power Party through proportional representation.

Professor Kim was active in the Economic Subcommittee 1 of the Presidential Transition Committee. She graduated from Seoul National University’s Department of Economics and earned her master's and doctoral degrees in economics from Yale University in the United States. After serving as a professor at Korea University, she moved to Seoul National University’s Department of Economics in 2009 and has held positions such as director of the Korean Economic Association, advisor to the Bank for International Settlements, and secretary general of the Korean Economic Association.

Professor Baek participated in the transition committee upon recommendation by Ahn Cheol-soo, the chairman of the transition committee, contributing to the design of the new government’s COVID-19 quarantine system. She graduated from Seoul National University College of Medicine and has served as president of the Korean Society of Infectious Diseases and as an advisory member of the COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Committee.