AmBex - Management

Chong-Moon Lee founded Diamond Multimedia Systems in 1982, which later achieved the No. 1 ranking in revenue and market share for PC graphics accelerator product in America (by IDC Computer Industry report, 1995). Diamond Multimedia was ranked 17th and 18th fastest growing privately held company in America for 1993 and 1994 on the Inc. business magazine's 500 fastest growing company list, and as the 8th fastest growing privately-held company in Silicon Valley by the Business Journal of San Jose in 1993. As the sole founder, it took 13 years of struggles to take the company to its successful IPO in early 1995. In 1996 he started another high technology venture company under the name of AmBex Venture Group. Since then, active investments have been made in the areas of wireless communication, voice over IP applications, internet infrastructures, network security and multimedia applications.

A native of South Korea, Lee has a diverse background involving not only business, but education, cultural as well as athletic activities. Prior to founding Diamond, Lee served as a librarian, as a university professor, as board member of UNESCO Korea Chapter and Olympic Committee of Korea. Currently Lee serves as a trustee and commissioner of The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, a trustee of Asia Society, and a member of California Arts Council, among many others. He is also a founding board member of The Tech Museum of Innovation of San Jose.

Lee also has been an active philanthropist in the local, national as well as international levels through The Chong-Moon Lee Foundation. As one of the widely known examples, the Foundation donated $16 million to The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, who then named the Museum after him as "Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture". Asian Art Museum is the largest museum of its kind in the world outside Asia. In March 2003 the Museum moved to the beautifully renovated former city library building next to San Francisco City Hall and immediately became the undisputable focal point of San Francisco's cultural scenery. He also supports financially many educational and cultural institutions, such as universities, hospitals and social services organizations.

As a consulting professor at the Asia-Pacific Research Center of Stanford University, Lee co-authored and edited "The Silicon Valley Edge" published by Stanford University Press, which traced unique evolution of Silicon Valley from 1949. He is also an advisor to STVP(Stanford Technology Venture Program) at Stanford University. He continuously urges that engineers should have business minds and skills to become successful entrepreneurs. To this end, he initiated to establish "Center for Science-based Entrepreneurship" at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) to educate the young engineering students to understand the value creation through combining technology and entrepreneurial minds.

Lee holds honorary doctorate degrees from John F. Kennedy University, Seton Hall University, University of Seoul, and Chung Ang University, MS in Library Science from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, and law degree from Chung Ang University, Seoul. Lee has received numerous accolades for outstanding leadership in business and civic areas, including the Order of Civil Merits (Mugungwha Medal) from the president of Korea, which is the highest medal of honor conferred to a civilian.