Soonkyu Shin lost his eyesight at age 9 but built a career as a credit analyst on Wall Street with a 'can-do' mindset. In a recent interview in Seoul, he emphasized that his life is not a dramatic tale of hardship and triumph but an 'others-made' story shaped by the people around him. His latest essay collection, 'Think Can-do and Find a Way,' takes its title from the mantra that has guided him for decades.
Soonkyu Shin serves as a vice president credit analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman, where he has worked on Wall Street for the past three decades. He studied psychology at Harvard with aspirations to become a psychiatrist, but new medical guidelines requiring unassisted patient examinations barred blind candidates from the profession. He then pursued a Ph.D. at MIT Sloan in management and organizational studies before opportunities took him to JPMorgan and his current role.
“My life is not like that. There’s no overdramatic story of incredible hardships and triumphs against overwhelming odds,” Shin told The Korea Times in the Seoul interview. “I’ve just been incredibly blessed with the people who have crossed my path, from my birth parents to my American parents, teachers, friends and coworkers. So the phrase ‘self-made’? I’m nothing like that. I’m ‘others-made,’ in a way.”
His mantra, “Think Can-do and Find a Way,” originated from an archery teacher but reflected his longstanding approach. At 13, invited to play piano at a Lions Clubs International event in Seoul for Singaporean guests, he needed to learn their national anthem without internet access. He called directory assistance for the Singaporean Embassy number, recorded someone singing it, and practiced from that. “Whether I got the chords right, I don’t know,” Shin chuckled. “But based on the melody, I played the anthem. And the guests were delighted and astonished. People say that wasn’t doable back in 1980, but I basically dared to call the embassy of a country and asked them to sing their song to me. There’s always a way.”
In 2012, Shin founded YANA Ministry to support children from Korean childcare institutions. In 2014, he and his wife brought daughter Yejin as an international student, adopting her into their family; she now works as a nurse at Dartmouth Medical Center in New Hampshire. YANA connects about 130 children with U.S. sponsors and has expanded to Indonesia and Ukraine. He plans a fourth book on his American journey before July 4, 2026.
The interview covered politics, technology, and YANA's origins, with Shin stressing truth and civility amid post-pandemic turbulence. While tech fuels polarization, he is optimistic that AI will democratize benefits for the marginalized.