Chul Jin Yoo, Partner


SPECIALTY AREA: Manufacturing and Operations

Chul Jin Yoo provides operating management expertise and deal feasibility for clients of Clemensen Capital wishing to buy industrial assets. A holder of two US patents with several pending, Mr. Yoo founded and serves as Chairman of three venture companies offering innovative products and engineered solutions. First, I-Metal-I, Inc., a new materials company that created an industry first: FireBanChair®, a non-flammable, non-smoking and non-toxic fabric for use in mass transit. He is helping the Company with product launches on subways in Asia and Europe. Second, Mr. Yoo is Chairman of Yujin Metro Communications, an Asian outdoor advertising media company generating revenues from advertising on newly introduced platform screen doors for subways. Third, he is Chairman of TIS, Inc., that installs proprietary patented parking guidance and management systems in commercial parking spaces in Asia and US.

Mr. Yoo spent more than thirty years at Hyundai, one of the largest Korean chaebols. Most recently, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of Hyundai Mobis Korea, a multinational billion dollar auto parts company. Before that, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Hyundai Heavy Industries and Senior Vice President of Hyundai International (now Doosan Heavy Industries). He was awarded honorary USA citizenships in the State of Alabama and Shelby County, Tennessee in recognition of his assistance in economic development there.

During the early years of Korea’s rapid industrialization, Mr. Yoo built six Hyundai Group companies in construction equipment and machinery and set up more than ten large-scale manufacturing facilities from paper to auto parts to construction equipment, including those owned by Korea Heavy Industries (now Doosan Heavy). He also turned around several unprofitable businesses. He set up and ran well-known facilities like Mando Machinery’s auto parts plant in Anyang, Korea, Halla Resources’ wood chip mill in Papua New Guinea, Halla Heavy’s shipbuilding & construction equipment plant in Incheon, Korea Heavy’s power plant and Samsung-Volvo’s construction equipment plant in Changwon, Korea. During this period, he also negotiated and set up for the first time numerous licensing and trade agreements for Hyundai with many well known companies like Dresser Industries, Yale Materials Handling, Nissan Construction Equipment, Shinko Forklift Trucks, Combustion Engineering for nuclear boilers, GE for turbines and generators, Cummins Engine for diesel engines, Winn United for steel mill machinery, Chrysler for air conditioning compressors, Poclain S.A., for excavators, American Hoist & Derrick for mechanical cranes, Mitsubishi Electric for automobile electrical parts and Tokico for Japanese shock absorbers.

In industry-related activities, he has been Vice Chairman of the Korean Automobile Manufacturer’s Association, Chairman of the 20th International Conference of Computer and Industrial Engineering, Chairman of Korea CNC Machine Tool Manufacturers Association, Vice Chairman of the Korea Machine Tool Manufacturers Association and Advisor to the Korea Industrial Engineers Association and to the Alabama World Trade Center.

At the University of Alabama, he completed PhD coursework in Management Science, was awarded a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering as a Distinguished Industrial Engineering Fellow and Alpha Pi Mu I.E. He has B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Hanyang University, Seoul, and served his Korean military service in the Air Force.