Management

Mr. John Schlaefer

Chief Executive Officer

John Schlaefer is responsible for ensuring the strategic direction of the company, business development, and day-to-day operations. He served as Chief Operating Officer from 2006 to 2013, where he led all sales, marketing, program management and production operations at GCT. Mr. Schlaefer offers a strong background in the wireless semiconductor industry, including extensive experience in marketing, business development and operations.

From 2003 to 2006, Mr. Schlaefer served as a member of our board of directors. From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Schlaefer was the Product Line Director for the RF Products Business Unit at National Semiconductor Corporation (National), a leading semiconductor company focused on analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits, where he was responsible for National's industry leading phase-locked loop (PLL) and voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) product lines. During this time, Mr Schlaefer also architected a successful partnership between National and GCT, resulting in the launch of PLL/VCO and PHS radio families by National. From 1994 to 2000, Mr. Schlaefer held various regional and worldwide marketing and operational positions at National, including Marketing Director, RF Products Business Unit from 1999-2001, Product Line Marketing Manager, Wireless Product Business Unit from 1996 to 1999 and Marketing Manager, New Business Development, Americas Regional Business Unit, from 1994 to 1996. From 1987 to 1993, Mr. Schlaefer was a project engineer and program manager at Watkins-Johnson Company, a microwave component and systems company serving the military marketplace.

Mr. Schlaefer holds a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr. Jeongmin "Jeemee" Kim

Chief Technology Officer

Jeongmin “Jeemee” Kim, Ph.D., is responsible for overseeing the company operations and ensuring the strategic direction of the company. Dr. Kim also focuses on developing wireless multimedia SOC based on Bluetooth or Wireless LAN and associated embedded cores for GCT Semiconductor, as well as overseeing the company's mobile media processor initiative. Dr. Kim brings a great deal of experience to the position, with more than nine years of service with Samsung Electronics and Korea Telecom working on multimedia semiconductor design. Dr. Kim has served as our Chief Technology Officer since 2013, and Vice President of Engineering since July 2003. Prior Dr. Kim was the Director of Engineering from February 2001 to June 2003.

Prior to joining us, Dr. Kim was involved in many industrial research projects relating to telecommunications technologies, including working as an independent design engineer in the development of an MPEG2 video decoder for HDTV with Daewoo Electronics, a home electronics company, from 1997 to 1998; a high performance H.263 video codec application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) with Korea Telecom, an integrated wired/wireless telecommunication service provider, from 1995 to 1997; and a high performance microcontroller for Samsung Electronics from 1993 to 1995.

Dr. Kim holds a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Seoul National University and a Ph.D. in the high performance CPU architecture, also from Seoul National University.

Mr. Edmond Cheng

Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Cheng leads the finance and information technology functions at GCT and is responsible for the management of the financial, planning, legal, information technology and other administrative activities for the company.

Mr. Cheng brings over 25 years of global leadership experience, including expertise in corporate development, cross-border mergers & acquisitions, corporate controllerships, treasury, and corporate governance. Before joining GCT, Mr. Cheng was the CFO for Cenntro Inc., a leading commercial EV company, where he was instrumental in leading the company’s IPO process. Mr. Cheng currently serves on the Board of GCB AutoZ which seeks to be the leader in the automotive aftermarket.

Before joining Cenntro, he was the CFO at Mithera Capital, a PE/VC firm based in the Pacific Northwest. Prior he served as CFO of other publicly listed companies including TCL Electronics Holdings, UTStarcom Inc., and Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology Co. Ltd., as well as private equity-owned portfolio companies from Temasek Holdings, Hony Capital/Goldman Sachs, and Blackstone Group/HNA Group.

Mr. Cheng holds an MBA from Columbia University, London School of Business, and Hong Kong University. He also received a Master of Accounting and Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Mr. Alex Sum

Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing

Alex Sum has served as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at GCT since 2013, leading the sales and product marketing functions. He is responsible for directing the product definition and marketing research efforts, and setting corporate business objectives and "time to market" goals. Mr. Sum also leads the sales operations at GCT.

From 2002 to 2013, Mr. Sum has served as our Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. From March 1992 to May 2002, Mr. Sum was Product Marketing Manager at Philips Semiconductor, the predecessor company of NXP Semiconductors, N.V., a semiconductor manufacturing company. From March 1983 to January 1992, Mr. Sum was Product/Test Engineering Supervisor at Supertex Inc., a technology company producing high-voltage analog and mixed signal semiconductor components. From September 1977 to March 1983, Mr. Sum was Product / Test Engineering Supervisor at Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc., a mixed signal, memory and discrete semiconductor company. From April 1975 to September 1977, Mr. Sum was Test/Wafer fab processing Engineering at Siliconix, the predecessor company of Vishay Intertechnology, Inc., a mixed signal, analog semiconductor company.

Mr. Sum holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from San Jose State University.