실리콘밸리를 대표하는 여성 창업자, 조이스김을 만나다
그녀는 왜 암호 화폐 '스텔라'를 만들었을까?
안녕하세요, 일하는 여자들의 멤버십 커뮤니티 헤이조이스입니다.
헤이조이스가 런칭할 때부터 "왜 헤이 '조이스'인가요?"라는 질문을 정말 많이 받았는데요. 지난 10월 31일, 많은 분들께 설명 대신 이 분을 소개하는 것이 좋을 것 같아 자리를 마련해 보았습니다!
바로 <Joyce, Meet Joyce!>
'영원히 나답게'라는 비전을 가지고 있는 헤이조이스에게 영감을 준, 그야말로 '나답게 살기' 1인자 조이스김이 한국에 왔습니다.
조이스김은 암호화폐 ‘스텔라’를 만들고, 현재는 1,000억원 규모의 투자 펀드 스파크체인 캐피털의 운영파트너로 활동 중인 실리콘밸리를 대표하는 여성 창업가랍니다.
'나는 진정 무엇을 원하는가?' 자신의 마음을 따라 '나다운 삶'을 살아갈 뿐 아니라, 선한 영향력을 통해 더 좋은 세계를 만들고 있는 조이스.
그 만남의 현장을 헤이조이스 커뮤니티 리포터 이지현 님과 시드 멤버 김혜민 님이 정리해주었습니다. 특히 김혜민 님은 이 날 조이스와 멤버들 사이에서 통역으로 활약하며 행사가 끝난 뒤 영어로 후기를 써주었는데요,
헤이조이스가 세상의 조이스들에게 던지는 메시지, 함께 보러 가실까요?
헤이조이스 커뮤니티 리포터 이지현 님의 <Joyce, Meet Joyce> 후기
스텔라 창업가 조이스김을 만나러 온 헤이조이스 멤버들과 손님들<Joyce Meet Joyce> 내내 조이스님으로부터 뿜어져나왔던 키워드는 '주체적인 삶에 대한 확신'이었다.
조이스님의 말을 옮겨보자면, "진정으로 책임감을 가지고 일을 한다는 것은 정말 쉽지 않다. 특히 founder로서 일을 하게 될 때 나에 대한 책임도 있겠지만 함께 일하는 직원들에게도 큰 영향을 미칠 수 있기 때문에 더욱 부담이 되고 힘든 것 같다. 그럼에도 불구하고 결정을 내리고 열심히 일할 수 있었던 가장 큰 원동력은, 내가 정말 사랑할 수 있는 일이기 때문이다."
본인의 이야기를 나누어 주는 조이스김의 모습특히, 조이스님의 변화에 대한 유연한 태도는 굉장히 인상깊었다.
"변화한다는 것은 절대 나쁜 일이 아니다. 난 늘 배우고 변하니까 내 정체성도 변하는 것이다. 그래서 내가 어떤 사람이냐는 질문에 한가지로 정의하기 힘든 것 같다. 나에게는 여러가지 면모가 있기 때문에 특정 하나의 모습에 집착하지 않는다. 더욱 유연하게 살고 싶고, 5년 후엔 또다른 내 모습을 기대한다. 그래야 내가 정체되지 않고 의미있게 사는 것 같다."
토크 세션을 진행하고 있는 헤이조이스 대표 플래너 이나리 님 (오른쪽)조이스님의 이야기는 자칫 안일해질 뻔 했던 나에게 큰 자극이 되었다. 최근 헤이조이스를 비롯한 다양한 경험에 노출이 되고 새로운 시도를 하며 깨달음을 얻다 보니, 내가 추구하는 가치관이 바뀌는 것을 느꼈다. 그러다보니 자연스레 하고 싶은 일도 바뀌었다.
정체된다는 것에 대한 두려움 vs 안주하지 않았을 때 잃는 것.. 고민하다 결론을 못낸 채 끝내 안주하려는 찰나에 조이스님의 이야기는 내가 답을 찾을 수 있게 도와주었다.
나는 오늘 자다 죽어도 그렇게까지 후회스럽지 않을 것 같다. 늘 무엇이 날 행복하게 하고, 슬프게 하는지 고민하고 배우며 내 삶을 조정했기 때문이다. 언제나 스스로에게 질문한다. 내가 내일 죽는다면 과연 하고싶은 것들을 다 이뤄냈나?
조이스님은 더 나아가 내가 주체가 되는 삶에 대한 극치(?)를 보여주었다.
"돈을 많이 벌어서 이런저런 명품을 사는 사람들을 볼 때 자신감이 없어 보인다. 마치 돈으로 남의 호응을 사서 인정받으려는 것 같다. 하지만 I already have my friends. 그 돈으로 사회적 문제를 해결하는 좀 더 의미있는 일을 하고 싶다."
대화를 나누고 있는 조이스 김과 이나리 님, 그리고 통역 담당 헤이조이스 시드멤버 김혜민 님헤이조이스의 '조이스'는 그녀의 이름에서 비롯되었다고 한다. 내가 내 자신으로 사는것에 대해 의심이 없고, 주체적으로 살기 위해 노력하며 정말 즐기면서 행복하게 살고 있기 때문에 그녀를 떠올리고 헤이조이스를 받아들일 수 있었다고 하셨다. 완전히 이해할 수 있었다ㅋㅋ
이 밖에도 실리콘밸리가 의외로 여성친화적이지 않다는 이야기, 다른 남성에게 함께 일하자고 제안했을때 팀 브레이커 취급을 당했던 이야기, 옷 입은 모습을 보고 무시당했던 이야기 등 조이스님은 다양한 차별과 어려움을 겪어온 듯 했다.
하지만 그런 일들에 대한 조이스님의 태도는 조이스 그 자체였다. 그 상황 속에서 감정적여지기 보단 Lesson learned을 얻어 긍정적 효과나 가치에 대해 바라보고 스스로 성장하는게 조이스님이었다.
강연이 끝난 후 헤이조이스 멤버 이지혜 님과 조이스 김조이스님의 강연이 끝난 후 어딘가 얻어맞은 듯 멍해졌었다. 내가 너무 남들 눈치만 보면서 나 스스로를 힘들게 했던 것은 아닌지, 남들을 의식하지 않고 나를 정말 가슴뛰게 했던 것들은 무엇인지, 그럼 난 앞으로 무엇을 하면 좋을지 많은 생각이 듦과 동시에 어마어마한 에너지를 얻은 기분이었다.
헤이조이스 시드 멤버 김혜민 님의 영문 후기
<A Stellar Meeting with Joyce Kim>
This year, I went through a couple of significant change in my life. First, I just turned thirty in Korean age, which means I will now be under a pretty heavy social pressure to really know where I’m going with my life. Secondly, I recently joined a membership club for female professionals based in Seoul called Hey Joyce.
Hey Joyce is a membership-based networking club open to career women, mostly Korean nationals, who are interested in exchanging information relevant to professional development opportunities. Some also join just to become part of a community of motivated, driven women.
Contents of the ongoing activities at the club include lectures, seminars, large scale networking parties, purpose-based meet ups (e.g. book writing, investment, tech industry trend analysis), and many more.
Sometimes these activities feature or are led by high-profile female guests referred to as “inspirers,” including but not limited to serial entrepreneurs, executives and partners from major local and international firms, high-level government officials, and influential media people.
Majority of these gatherings take place in the club lounge located in Seolleung, Gangnam. Over two hundred members joined this community only two months into its official launching in September 2018.
이야기하는 조이스김을 바라보고 있는 통역 담당 김혜민 님 The slogan for Hey Joyce is “stay true to yourself, forever” as a woman and a professional. While this may be guaranteed for women in some parts of the world, the South Korean society is still struggling to realize the full potential of its female workforce.
To offer an illustration, OECD claims that South Korea has the biggest gender wage gap among member countries, ranks fifth lowest in the representation of women in the parliament, and has only 10.5% women in managerial positions in the private sector.
These conditions, combined with demanding expectations on adhering to gender roles, challenge young women who are as devoted to their personal life and career as to the roles in a family and the broader society. My personal observation is that this is more the case for Korean women born in 1970-80s and less so but still applicable to the later generation of the millennials.
[Chart #1] South Korea ranks third to lowest in gender wage gap among featured countries (OECD 2017,
[Chart #2] Women are still underrepresented in the parliament (ibid.)With regard to these cultural background, one of the reasons why so many women are drawn to Hey Joyce is because they want to mingle with the influencers who offer guidance on developing a career that best suites them.
Just last week, I had the privilege to interpret at a talk given by one of these influencers, Joyce Kim, co-founder of cryptocurrency Stellar and Managing Partner at SparkChain Capital.
Joyce is unique among the influencers because she is where the club got its name from. I’ve been told by Hey Joyce CEO Naree Lee that she asked Joyce to let her do this since Joyce is such an excellent example of an individual who perfectly lives up to the community’s slogan.
On Wednesday, October 31st, Joyce visited Hey Joyce club lounge and talked to about half of the total club members about her life and her work in the cryptocurrency space.
What made Joyce interesting is that she was so many things in a single human body. A surfer, entrepreneur, ex-lawyer, a once child prodigy and a now woman with a strong sense of humor, Joyce told us that she was currently at the stage of her life where her mission is to invest the resources from the crypto world to tackle one of today’s most pressing social issues, income inequality.
Joyce Before SparkChain Capital
(from left) Joyce Kim, Naree Lee, CEO and Hyemin KimJoyce started off the talk with a reflection on her educational and professional background.
Her experience was very unusual compared to most other stories I heard from Korean Americans who usually come from highly demanding families that prefer conventional elite education.
For instance, she left high school before graduation, decided to attend Cornell for B.A. at the age of 16 and graduated three years later, went to Harvard for a Master’s and considered continuing onto a Ph.D., but instead decided to go to Columbia for a J.D. She mentioned that she mostly went to law school to persuade her parents who did not agree with her leaving Harvard.
She then joined a law firm, went on to a venture capital, founded a K-pop media business, and after selling it created Stellar. Leaving all that behind she is now working with her current fund, SparkChain Capital.
From what I understand, Joyce’s point was twofold: for her, the best decisions that she made in life were the ones disregarding social pressure. Another thing is that life and career almost never goes as planned.
I have to admit that some of the stories Joyce shared were not relatable to everyone because they are such unique experiences.
But some of the more darker bits (e.g. how she felt she undersold her first company despite the endless nights spent burning the midnight oil, or the pressure she experienced during her company’s end of the year party thinking that she is responsible for guaranteeing her employees and their families’ living) were more than enough to illustrate how much Joyce went through before she came to terms with her achievements, just like in the case of everyone else.
As the Managing Director of SparkChain Capital, Joyce also shared some of her insights about the cryptocurrency market and how her fund’s vision is somewhat different from those of other investors.
Truth be told, I knew nothing about the cryptocurrency before attending her talk but somehow had some negative bias against it.
Recent governmental regulations against ICOs in South Korea have of course contributed to my limited understanding of cryptocurrency.
To finance illiterates like myself, cryptocurrency is often seen as a risky investment option for people who are into hit-the-jackpot opportunities.
[Reference #1] About Joyce and SparkChain Capital
Joyce explained that this is not necessarily the case, and added that cryptocurrency and the underlying blockchain technology are in fact handy tools that help tackle issues of socioeconomic inequality.
For instance, it resolved the issue of transaction fees African immigrant workers in European countries deal with when sending a portion of their earnings back home to their family.
While this specific type of international transaction is as important as ODA for development in low-income countries, using conventional banking system burden the workers with high trading fees because it is designed to benefit the middle men involved in the process.
As a result, less financial resources flow into the developing countries.
According to Joyce, Stellar helped get rid of these problems by decentralizing the financial system and promoting inclusion for the poor though making money transfer more accessible.
Another product designed to tackle income inequality using blockchain technology that Joyce introduced is Bext360, a coffee bean sorting machine that guarantees on-the-spot, transparent trade between farmers and buyers in Africa.
These efforts are similar in its nature in that they all acknowledge the fact that, as Joyce said, “it is expensive to be poor” and uses technology to solve a social problem in a scalable way.
[Reference #2] Blockchain Powered Financial Inclusion (World Bank Doc)
[Reference #3] On Bext360, a Coffee Bean Sorting Machine
Joyce’s Pearl of Wisdom
Before concluding her talk, Joyce made some final comments about what she expects from her field. She explained that she saw cryptocurrency and blockchain as a powerful disruptive technology capable of decentralizing an existing system to make more inclusive societies, just as the Internet once did.
This aspect of cryptocurrency also happens to be the reason Stellar was developed at a non-profit organization, because she wanted to treat it as a public good like the Internet.
Joyce also added that she personally hopes to see more businesses using blockchain and cryptocurrency to come up with actual products and services instead of focusing just on the trading and exchange aspect of things to realize the full potential of the technology.
행사가 끝난 후 헤이조이스 멤버 이승우 님과 사진을 찍는 조이스 김The conversation with Joyce was not just inspiring because it was about cutting edge technology or because she was such an important pioneer in the crypto scene.
I found Joyce as a person more impressive because she is genuinely a doer than a thinker. When she got a question from the floor about how to develop insight for understanding new technology, she answered that she used to write down every single new word when she first entered the crypto space and spent nights and days doing research, which proves that she works incredibly hard, too.
From what I understood Joyce is not afraid to take risks in her life because she has a mission greater than herself. Her passion magically made the tech issues that once seemed so complicated easier to understand and sparked an interest in our hearts that will continue to grow. I feel confident to say this on behalf of all the others who attended the event.
헤이조이스 커뮤니티 리포터 이지현 님의 <Joyce, Meet Joyce> 후기 블로그 전문은 아래 링크에서 보실 수 있으며,
https://ljhyun3295.blog.me/221392415110
영문으로 후기를 써주신 헤이조이스 시드 멤버 김혜민 님의 블로그는 아래와 같습니다!
https://hyeminchokim.wordpress.com/2018/11/09/a-stellar-meeting-with-joyce-kim/
멋진 후기를 작성해주신 두 분께 감사의 말씀 전합니다.
오늘도 헤이조이스는 여성들이 원하는 방식으로 원하는 일을, 원하는 때까지 지속할 수 있도록 커리어를 인커리지 하는 데 힘쓰겠습니다!
영원히, 나답게!
