Every morning at 7am, an hour before employees arrived for work, Chung Jinho, then the CEO of a major global financial company, would turn up at the office building. He would bypass the elevator, head to the stairwell and walk step by step up the building.

Jinho would stop at each floor to speak blessing over and pray for each department sitting on that level. He would do this until he reached the 10th and highest floor, where his office was located.  

On that floor, he would turn the prayers to himself, “God, please protect me today. Do not let me fall into temptation.”

That was 20 years ago.

But 40 years in financial capital markets has taught Jinho the enduring power of money to seduce. 

“Modern capitalism is very strong,” he said. “This world is at risk of mammon taking over.” 

In the early days of his career as an analyst with a major Japanese bank in Tokyo making big bucks, Jinho’s focus had always been laser sharp: To become wealthy and successful. 

“I wanted to be like Warren Buffet,” he told Salt&Light.

He pursued that dream across capital markets. From Tokyo, he moved to the axis of global finance on Wall Street, where he led Asian investments for the Prudential Group in New York, before returning to Korea to establish Prudential Korea.

Fueled by his dream to be “the Warren Buffet of Asia”, Jinho left Prudential and founded Asset Korea, an independent asset management company that grew its assets under management(AUM) to US$300 million within two years.

“It was very successful,” Jinho said matter-of-factly. 

Then Jinho met Jesus and his financial life crashed, setting the foundation for a new dream to emerge. 

The encounter

When Asset Korea took off, Jinho felt only emptiness after achieving the goal he had pursued his whole life.

He hit the bars every night in the name of entertaining clients but downing alcohol provided no fulfilment.

Jinho’s wife Kyungra, a  fourth-generation Christian, never pushed him to go to church but she prayed faithfully for her husband.  

“It was because of her faithful prayers that I ended up in church, where I met Jesus,” Jinho recounted. 

A music lover, Jinho first encountered Jesus during a hymn. He leads worship with his wife Kyungra at their cell gathering.

It was in the wee hours of a morning in 1992. Jinho was stumbling home drunk at 4am when he saw his wife heading to the church opposite their house. Curious, he followed her and watched.

The congregation inside the church were singing these lines from a popular Korean hymn: “I praise Your name, You are the King of the heart, You are the King of the soul.”

A lover of music and a clarinet player, Jinho was instantly moved. “God used my favourite channel to reach me,” he recalled.

That moment marked the beginning of his journey of faith. He started going to church with his wife and joined disciple programmes to learn about Jesus.

Having a form of godliness

After he became a Christian, Jinho, as the head of the company, implemented spiritual practices at work: Daily prayers, Bible study every Friday and tithing half the profits to missions.

He also changed the name of his company from Asset Korea to Acts Capital, after the book of Acts in the Bible.

But there was a problem.

Jinho lived a secular life at work from Monday to Friday and “took on a form of holiness” on weekends. He told Salt&Light: “I convinced myself I was a good enough Christian, and gave many testimonies at churches.” 

Having worked all his life for big organisations in the corporate world , Jinho defaulted to living his spiritual life the same way.

“I was trying to promote myself,” he explained. “I thought I had to do something for, instead of simply be with Jesus.”

Jinho also started to contribute financially to the church to gain respect and recognition.

“But God wanted to change my doing into being,” he reflected. 

Ironically, after he became a Christian, Acts Capital started to flounder. The company’s core clients Japanese pension funds withdrew money without reason, wiping out the company’s assets over the next two years. 

Jingho tried to keep the company afloat by injecting more money into it, paying “big salaries” to his employees and steep rent on one of the best buildings in Seoul. 

Several companies approached Jinho to acquire the company, including a large US financial company that suggested Acts Capital could fetch up to US$100 million if Jinho kept it running for two more years. 

By the third year of the downturn, money had dried up and debt had piled up. Jinho had to sell his house to raise more money.

No longer able pay his employees, Jinho begged them to wait another year so he could share with them the proceeds from the potential sale. 

From Monday to Friday, Jinho lives out his faith as “a workplace priest”.

“All of a sudden, I was broke,” he said. “I had broken myself.”

But his wife Kyungra stood by her husband and blessed him as they were leaving the house. 

“You are great. I have never seen a great husband like you,” she encouraged him.  

The dire financial straits in which the Chungs were mired was deeply unsettling.

“But because my wife’s heart was fully focused on God, and resting in the peace of Jesus, she was able to respond to my situation with grace and love,” Jinho recalled. 

She was not the only one to do so.

A poor young minister from their church turned up one night at the Chungs’ modest rented house with his entire month’s pay. He told Jinho that God had prompted him to give them the money.

“I was so ashamed to take the money,” Jinho told Salt&Light. “But the Holy Spirit told me ‘You have to receive that money, because without receiving, you cannot give. When you become rich, you can generously give to others.’” 

God or mammon

During those dark days, a Korean conglomerate stepped in with an alternative offer for Jinho: It would take on the debt of the company and keep the employees for five years.

There was a caveat: The conglomerate would pay Jinho just US$1 for his business.

Jinho wrestled with the painful choice between money and people. Should he continue to run the company with the prospect of US$100 million in hand, but no guarantee of jobs for his employees? Or should he sacrifice the money for himself to buy job security for them?

His partners came into the office and stared at him in silence for half an hour, wordlessly pushing him to decide. They wanted their salaries. They had families to look after, Jinho noted.

At that time, Jinho had been reading the account of King David taking back Ziklag in 1 Samuel 30.

When David and his men were away at war, the Amalekites had attacked Ziklag and taken captive David’s men, their families, wives and children.

“And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. David recovered all that the Amalekites had taken, and David rescued his two wives. Nothing was missing, whether small or great, sons or daughters, spoil or anything that had been taken. David brought back all.” 1 Samuel 30:6,18-19

“As I read and meditated on that, I believe God was training me to value people over money,” Jinho told Salt&Light.

“While David was a fugitive pursued by King Saul, he protected his 600 men as much as he could, even though his life was in danger. When his own family was temporarily taken captive in the war, David took pity on his men even though they tried to kill him, and he took responsibility for them.”  

That Word in the Bible tipped the scales for Jinho.

He sold his company for US$1 in exchange for five years of job security for his employees.  

“Ultimately, I had to confess that my all assets and all my liabilities belonged to the Lord Jesus,” he said. “The surrender was a turning point that led to a long period of deep repentance.”

A gift from God

But the problem of money did not go away. 

Although the chairman of the Korean conglomerate kept and paid all of the Jinho’s former employees, he reneged on his promise to take on the debt.

Jinho stayed with the company for two years as a consultant but he was left with no company, no assets and no means of paying off a staggering debt he was shackled to. 

With a contract in hand, Jinho had every legal right to sue for recovery. But he heard the quiet whisper of God to forgive the chairman of the company, who was also a Christian.

“It was very painful but I decided to forgive him,” Jinho said.

Jinho told the chairman to his face: “Chairman, you are a brother-in-Christ. I forgive you. You are free from this promise.” 

Right after Jinho left the chairman’s office, his mobile phone rang.

It was the vice chairman of a major American financial group. The group had acquired one of the largest Korean investment banking firms with about US$14 billion dollars in assets and was looking for someone to run the company.

Jinho, who had led the Asian assets team for Prudential on Wall Street, was floated as a candidate.

In debt and humiliated by being cheated, Jinho took the job offer as God’s gift to him.

The new company took on all his partners as well. For almost five years, Jinho ran the company not just as a CEO but a workplace priest.

“God, please protect me today”

Having reached the turning point in his spiritual life and been given another chance to run a company, Jinho put on his priestly mantle this time.

“From Monday to Friday, I went to work as a workplace priest,” he said.

Instead of pushing employees to pray, Jinho led by praying, starting with the morning prayers at 7am, floor by floor.

With about 1,000 employees under him, Jinho saw himself more as a pastor than a CEO. He visited them at home or in the hospital when any of them were sick.

Having previously fallen for the spell of money and mammon, he was diligent to pray daily for himself against its deadly pull.

“God, please protect me today. Do not let me succumb to the temptation of insider information, or whatever dishonest things,” he would pray.

To guard against the power of mammon, Jinho made a decision to give generously. Despite being debt-ridden at that time, he set aside a portion of his earnings as gifts to the church, to missions and any other work God directed him to.

“When I gave up the money, I felt the power of mammon weakening,” Jinho said.

His paradigm shifted. In the past, when the businessman gave half his profits to God, it was “me sharing with God.” After being financially broken, Jinho realised he was but a huge debtor living on the grace, mercy and provision of God.

Now, he sees everything as God’s. 

“Any earning, any bonus is Yours, God,” Jinho proclaimed.

After five years, when the American financial group decided to sell its Korean subsidiary, Jinho structured the deal and pulled off a successful merger and acquisition. He was rewarded with a bonus with which he paid off his crushing debt.

“I realised God wanted me to surrender to Him, rely on him,” Jinho recounted. “When I sacrificed money, God revived me.”

Kyungra, who has witnessed the change in her husband over these years, told Salt&Light:⁠ ⁠“Today, my husband is not only a mature and generous-hearted man, but someone I deeply admire and walk with as a beloved partner in faith.”

Discipling the next generation 

After his retirement from the high stakes corporate world of finance, Jinho turned his attention to impact investments. Impact investments benefit society or the environment while generating financial gains.

He co-founded impact investing venture Merry Year Social Company (MYSC) in 2011 to incubate social enterprises.

Eight years ago, Jinho established venture capital company The Wells Investment with two partners to do impact investment in financial markets. The name alludes to the wells found in Genesis 26.

Jinho with his wife Kyungra (left), his son Jaehuen and his family.

In addition to impact investments, Jinho believes “part of being a workplace priest is workplace discipleship.”

In the last 10 years, he kickstarted three initiatives to disciple young entrepreneurs and provide guidance on living out their calling in the workplace. 

The 70-year-old CEO of The Wells Investment runs these programmes every night of the week as a ministry. He teaches part of the curriculum and also mentors the young leaders. 

“God gave me a heart for the youths in Asia,” Jinho said. “Many young people don’t know how to live as a workplace Christian: They don’t know how to deal with HR (human resource), how to deal with money, how to do relationships, how to manage alcohol during business entertainment. So we journey with them and provide a Biblical way of doing those things.”

Jinho (far right) spends every evening of the week discipling young adults. He is here with a group from Faith and Work Institute Asia (FWIA), a mentoring programme he co-founded with theologian Dr Yoonhee Kim.

Today, Jinho also jointly runs Singapore-based Asian Companion Fund with Robert Kim, managing director of manager of JLN, a mission-driven financial management group established by basketball star Jeremy Lin. Asia Companion Fund is a joint venture between The Wells Investment and JLN that invests in Asian businesses bringing positive impact and exemplifies godly values. The fund made its first investment in fintech wealth advisor Endowus.

“I’ve had the privilege of seeing Jinho live out his role as a husband, an investor, and a musician,” Robert told Salt&Light.

“What strikes me most is his humility and his heart to serve others. He always reminds me that achievements are secondary but to remember to enjoy life and accept my identity as a child of God.”

The venture capital markets in cities like Singapore and Korea are harsh places that bring on anxiety and fear over the uncertainty of the future, Jinho noted. 

“But if our mission is truly rooted in God’s calling, then our present fears become opportunity,” he pointed out. “If your mission is truly rooted in God’s calling, then never give up. We must rise up boldly, like the Lion of Judah, and boldly proclaim and press on for breakthrough with courage.”

Twenty-two years ago, when Jinho sold his asset management firm for US$1, he suffered condemnation daily, hearing the voice of the enemy call him a failure and cajoling him to abandon this path. But through prayers, the Holy Spirit reminded him he was not a failure.

“We have to be bold and surround ourselves with a community whose intercession and prayers keep us strengthened,” he told Salt&Light.

On the other hand, when all is going well in one’s life, be humble, Jinho emphasised.

“This is where we embody the other image of Christ the Lamb, who sacrificed Himself at the cross in obedience.

“In whatever situation, come before God every day in humility, seek forgiveness, offer forgiveness, and examine our hearts.”

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