Honorees

Tony, Grammy, and Critics Choice award nominee Ashley Park is widely known for her role as ‘Mindy Chen’ on the hit Netflix series “Emily in Paris”—with the third season released in December 2022 and fourth on the way. The multihyphenate was most recently seen starring in Adele Lim’s comedy Joy Ride and Netflix’s Emmy-nominated “Beef”, a dramedy from Lee Sung Jin. Park will next be seen in season 3 of Hulu’s critically acclaimed “Only Murders in the Building.” Past film and TV credits include Mr. Malcolm’s List, “Girls5eva”, “Tales of the City”, and “Nightcap,” and her work on Broadway includes Mama Mia!, The King and I, Sunday in The Park with George, Grand Horizons, and Mean Girls, for which she earned Tony, Drama League, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Chita Rivera Award nominations for her performance as ‘Gretchen Wieners.’

Sunny Park is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Great American Scholarship Foundation, the former Chief Executive Janitor of General Building Maintenance, and CEO of Global Sun Investments, Inc. Mr. Park is an Executive in Residence of Georgia State University where he lectures MBA classes regularly. He is the 2000 USO Patriot Award recipient and was named one of Most Influential Atlantans by JAMES Magazine and Atlanta Business Chronicle for multiple years.

A native of South Korea, Mr. Park served as Commissioner of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Vice Chairman of Georgia Ports Authority. He immigrated to the United States in 1974 with no money and now, as an indicator of his business acumen, has successfully achieved his goal of paying $1 million in annual income tax.

Mr. Park also serves on several nonprofit boards, including: National Guard’s Youth Foundation in Washington, DC, which supports programs for high school dropouts; USO Georgia; National Center for Civil and Human Rights; Carter Center Board of Councilors; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; Atlanta Rotary Club Board; WABE Atlanta Public Broadcasting; Advisory Board of Kennesaw State University; Emeritus board member of Berry College and Junior Achievements Georgia. He previously served on the boards of National Museum of Patriotism; Georgia Public Policy Foundation; Shepherd Center Hospital; Emory University Board of Visitors; Savannah College of Art & Design. He is the 2004 and 2008 Presidential Elector from Georgia.

Mr. Park served as President of the National Korean American Federation (1991) and Chairman of the 1992 Overseas Korean Conference in Berlin, Germany. In 1996, he founded the American Korean Friendship Society to strengthen unique relationship between the two nations. To encourage fellow immigrants to become active in community affairs, Mr. Park founded the Good Neighboring Foundation. With his own program “If Sunny Can, I Can,” he mentors high school dropouts at National Guard’s Youth Challenge Programs. He presented the commencement speeches to the 2006 Class of Kennesaw State University, the 2007 Class of Berry College located in Rome, Georgia, and the 2018 Class of Belhaven University, Jackson, Mississippi.

Mr. Park is a laureate of Atlanta Business Hall of Fame of Junior Achievements and KATUSA Hall of Fame in Korea. He is decorated with People’s Merit of the Republic of Korea; Service Award by the President of the U. S.; Americanism Medal by Daughters of American Revolution; Patrick Henry Trophy by National Guards; Small Business Person of the Year by Atlanta Chamber of Commerce; Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Youth Foundation 2007; VanLandingham Commitment to Economic Education Award by Georgia State University; Freedom Award from Georgia Public Policy Foundation; and the Liberty Award by Institute of Corian American Studies.

He studied at Information Technology Institute of Korea, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, Kellogg School of Management, National Security Seminars at US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA. He received an honorary doctorate degree from Belhaven University. Mr. Park and his family attend the Church of Apostles in Atlanta, Georgia.

James Rhee is an acclaimed impact investor, founder, CEO, and educator.

James’ leadership story grabbed global attention during his unlikely seven-year tenure as Chairman and first-time CEO at Ashley Stewart, a fashion retailer with deep historical roots in the Black American community. After the financial community turned its back on this twice-bankrupt company, James left the world of private equity and lead the creation of a reimagined ecosystem that blurred boundaries and centered “Kindness and Math,” a combination that fueled an unprecedented transformation and success story. Core to the reinvention was the deep friendship and shared values between the son of Korean immigrants and a predominantly Black female employee group, who placed their mutual trust in each other, learned from one another, and then proceeded to quietly shock the world. Following the conclusion of his tenure as CEO of Ashley Stewart, Howard University invited James to spend time as the Johnson Chair of Entrepreneurship and senior advisor to the Center for Women, Gender and Global Leadership.

James’ philosophies and methodologies have been featured by TED Conferences, Brene Brown and Simon Sinek. In addition to his duties at Howard University, James holds appointments at Duke Law School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he serves as Senior Lecturer at Sloan School of Management and Executive-in-Residence and Strategic Advisor at the MIT Leadership Center. He works with some of the world’s leading organizations on human-driven change, broadly defined.

His upcoming book, entitled “red helicopter”, will be published in April 2024 in partnership with Harper One, an imprint of Harper Collins that specializes in multi-platform ideas that “transform, inspire, change lives, and influence cultural discussions.” He is working on related film, music, and television projects.

He currently serves as a founding member of the Advisory Council of JP Morgan Chase’s Advancing Black Pathways, a charter member of Ashoka’s Entrepreneur-to-Entrepreneur Network, and a board member of Coalition for Asian American Families and Children. He also serves on the Board of Xponance, a $15+ billion asset management and investment firm focused on emerging manager strategies, and is an advisor to numerous leaders across various industries. He formerly served on the Board of Directors of National Retail Federation, where he served as Chair of the Innovation Committee and earned their Power Player Award. The New York Urban League awarded him the Frederick Douglass Award, and he is a former honoree of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year program.

He lives outside Boston with his wife and three children. He is an honors graduate of both Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of Harvard Law Review.

L. Song Richardson is an award-winning educator, legal scholar, and lawyer who is recognized for her transformational leadership in higher education. She became Colorado College’s 14th president in July 2021. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College and her Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School.

As a Black and Korean leader, she is the first woman of color to hold the presidency at Colorado College.

Before coming to Colorado College, President Richardson was the dean and chancellor’s professor of law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. When appointed there, she was the only woman of color to lead a top law school. While she was dean, the school received accolades for its commitment to students, faculty scholarship, the diversity of its student body, and its leadership in addressing the societal implications of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies.

Under her leadership, UCI Law quadrupled the number of endowed student scholarships; launched a CEO Fellowship program; partnered with the UN’s AI for Good Conference; launched new revenue-generating educational programs; established a satellite program on the East Coast; and enrolled one of the most diverse student bodies among top law schools.

President Richardson serves on the Board of Directors for the Council of Independent Colleges. She is also a member of the American Law Institute and the Council of Korean Americans.

She is frequently invited to speak on the challenges facing higher education. Her awards and recognitions include the Association of American Law Schools’ Derrick Bell Award, which recognizes a faculty member’s extraordinary contributions to legal education through mentoring, teaching, and scholarship, and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association’s Trailblazer Award. In recognition of her accomplishments, the Thurgood Marshall Bar Association created the L. Song Richardson Legacy Award to honor individuals whose contributions make a lasting impact on the legal profession.

President Richardson’s interdisciplinary research uses lessons from cognitive and social psychology to study decision-making and judgment. Her scholarship has been published by law journals at Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Cornell, Duke, and Northwestern, among others.

President Richardson also is a classically trained pianist who performed twice with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and won numerous major piano competitions, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Harvard/Radcliffe concerto competitions.