Eric B. Kim is a Korean American

Korean American

Korean Americans are Americans of Korean descent, mostly from South Korea, with a small minority from North Korea...

 businessman in the technology

Technology

Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

 field.

Kim was born in Seoul

Seoul

Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...

, South Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

, in 1954. At the age of 11, his family moved to Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. He majored in physics

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

 at Harvey Mudd College

Harvey Mudd College

Harvey Mudd College is a private residential liberal arts college of science, engineering, and mathematics, located in Claremont, California. It is one of the institutions of the contiguous Claremont Colleges, which share adjoining campus grounds....

, and went on to earn a master's

Master's degree

A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...

 in engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

 at UCLA and an MBA from the Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...

.

Kim worked for a number of companies in his early career. He was general manager of database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

 products at software firm Lotus Development, President and CEO of Pilot Software

Pilot software

Pilot Software, Inc. is a long-time United States business intelligence vendor that now focuses on operational performance management. Pilot, headquartered in Mountain View, California and Cambridge, Massachusetts, became an independent company in 2002...

, a part of business information provider Dun & Bradstreet

Dun & Bradstreet

Dun & Bradstreet is a Fortune 500 public company headquartered in Short Hills, New Jersey, USA that provides information on businesses and corporations for use in credit decisions, B2B marketing and supply chain management...

, and a member of venture-capitalist

Venture capital

Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...

 firm Spencer Trask Software Group.

Kim moved back to South Korea to join Samsung Electronics

Samsung Electronics

Samsung Electronics is a South Korean multinational electronics and information technology company headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul...

 in 1999, where during a tenure of five years he rose to become leader of their global marketing initiatives. Kim was instrumental in generating brand visibility worldwide for Samsung with its "DigitAll-Everyone's Invited" campaign.

He moved back to the United States in 2004, when Intel hired him as their chief marketing officer. He later moved to heading their digital home initiative, as a senior vice president and general manager of the Digital Home Group.

On the 9th June 2010 it was announced that Eric Kim would become President and Chief Executive Officer of Soraa Inc., a clean-tech semiconductor company.