26 – 100 in alphabetical order by company: Henry Chung, senior vice-president and head of Silicon Valley office, Hyundai Cradle
Henry Chung was appointed senior vice-president and head of Hyundai Cradle in Silicon Valley, an open innovation and corporate venturing subsidiary of South Korea-based carmaker Hyundai Motor.
Chung joined Hyundai in July 2020 after 10 years at South Korea-headquartered electronics, chemical and telecoms conglomerate LG’s electronics manufacturing arm LG Electronics, as vice-president of corporate venture capital (CVC).
The unit, formerly known as Hyundai Ventures, has more than a dozen active portfolio companies including solid-state battery provider Solid Power, mobility discovery app Migo, industrial inspection robot producer Percepto, computer vision technology startup Allegro.AI and unmanned aircraft vehicle developer Top Flight.
Behavioural prediction software developer Perceptive Automata, solid-state battery technology developer Ionic Materials, wireless technology developer MetaWave, voice intelligence technology developer SoundHound, wireless power technology company Mojo Mobility, display technology developer Ostendo Technologies, driver safety technology developer Netradyne and electric vehicle software provider Ampup are also among the companies it has backed.
At LG Electronics, he led teams responsible for leading venture capital deals in North America and engaging in open innovation activities with venture-backed startups, universities, accelerators and national laboratories.
Chung was a director of LG Innovation Ventures for two years from 2010 before ascending to senior director and managing director of the unit, a role he held until the promotion to his current role in 2016.
There, he scouted and conducted venture deals, engaged in open innovation and corporate development activities in North America and reported to IP Park, chief technology officer of LG Electronics based in the South Korea headquarters.
Before joining LG Electronics, Chung had spent four years as a director of the direct investment team at US-based debt and equity provider Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)’s venture capital investment arm SVB Capital, where he invested from two funds in different technology realms ranging from information technology hardware, internet, cleantech and life sciences.
Before that, Chung was a vice-president from 2003 to 2005 at a mergers and acquisitions strategic consulting firm Newforth Partners, which is now part of boutique investment banking firm Woodside Capital Partners.
In addition, Chung was a founding partner of Imagicians Interactive, an internet strategy and consulting services provider based in Boston, in the US state of Massachusetts, that was sold to a traditional advertising agency Lapham-Miller in 2002. He was also a management consultant at boutique strategic consulting firm Fletcher Spaght.
Chung began his professional career as a computer programmer developing system dynamics models at Mitre, a nonprofit organisation that manages federally funded research and development centres, and as a DNA researcher at the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Chung graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning both bachelor of science and master of engineering degrees in electrical engineering, with premedical and acoustics specialisation. Chung is a native of the US state of Virginia, who lived for 13 years in Boston and has resided in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2002.
