[Blooming Lunch] Yoon Hye-jun: “From McKinsey to crypto… I was drawn to the technology and the people”

Yoon Hye-jun, Institutional Lead at Plasma

Former McKinsey consultant

Began with attending an Ethereum conference

Switched careers to the blockchain industry

“We will build better financial infrastructure”

“Meet good people and have good conversations.” That is the core idea of Blooming Lunch. We meet great people in the crypto scene (Crypto Scene, the blockchain and virtual-asset ecosystem) and share their work and lives.

Yoon Hye-jun, Institutional Lead at Plasma, first set foot in the crypto scene through “ETHDenver.” ETHDenver is the world’s largest Ethereum (ETH) conference, held every year in February–March in Denver, Colorado. Yoon first attended ETHDenver in 2022, when she was working at McKinsey’s Korea office.

What brought her to ETHDenver was curiosity about cryptocurrencies. “At the time, I became interested in crypto while writing blockchain-related papers at McKinsey, and I thought I needed to attend a conference to study,” she said, adding with a laugh, “I didn’t even really know what kind of conference ETHDenver was—I just headed to Denver.”

Captivated by the energy of ETHDenver, Yoon decided to change her career path. “I felt that everything needed for change—technology, people, capital—was there,” she said. “After ETHDenver, I wanted to work in the blockchain industry, so I canceled my flight back to Korea and went to New York instead.”

We met Yoon at “Cafe Albert” in Gangnam-gu, Seoul—a cafe she often visited in college. It is a large, three-story cafe that also sells light meal items such as sandwiches. With Yoon’s morning meetings running long, we met around 2 p.m. and ordered an apple-ham sandwich for a late lunch. The sandwich features thinly sliced apples, ham and arugula tucked into ciabatta.

From blockchain VC to a sovereign wealth fund

We continued our conversation over coffee. Shortly after ETHDenver, Yoon left McKinsey and joined YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs). YZi Labs is a venture capital (VC) firm founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao (CZ), founder of Binance. Yoon worked there for 1 year and 3 months as an investment professional.

She worked on the M&A team before moving to the token investment team. “There were major events like the FTX bankruptcy,” she said. “At the same time, I was given big responsibilities and met many projects, which allowed me to learn the (crypto) industry in a condensed way.” She added, “That was also when institutional investors began to take a serious interest in blockchain,” noting, “That momentum was part of why I wanted to work at a sovereign wealth fund dealing with blockchain.”

That context also explains why Yoon left YZi Labs in 2023 and headed to Singapore’s Temasek. Temasek is an investment holding company 100% owned by Singapore’s Ministry of Finance. “Temasek not only commits capital but also directly carries out ‘company building’ in promising sectors,” Yoon said, adding, “One of the projects Temasek helped build directly was ‘Partior.’”

Partior is a Singapore-based blockchain payments firm co-founded by Temasek in 2021 together with global investment bank (IB) JPMorgan and Standard Chartered (SC). Partior also partnered last year with NH NongHyup Bank to provide a blockchain-based cross-border remittance service. “At a time when doubts about crypto’s real-world usefulness were growing, building Partior was helpful,” Yoon said. “I could clearly see the impact blockchain technology can have on payment services, and I strongly felt the need for a finance-focused Layer 1 blockchain.”

“We will build faster, cheaper financial infrastructure”

Partior also played a role in Yoon’s move to Plasma last September. Plasma is a stablecoin-only Layer 1 blockchain project founded in 2024. It drew attention after securing investment last year from Founders Fund, a VC led by Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder.

“Working with traditional finance (TradFi) institutions at Partior made me realize that blockchain’s practicality ultimately depends on how efficiently it can move and manage money,” Yoon said. “I joined Plasma because I wanted to properly build financial infrastructure that many people can use faster, more cheaply, and reliably.”

Plasma’s office is in London, the U.K., and Yoon also relocated there last year. “Most of my (Plasma) colleagues aren’t British,” she said. “Since many of us don’t have friends in London, we often spend weekends together.” She added, “We work out together and sometimes go watch Premier League matches.”

As for what she finds appealing about the crypto scene, she cited “the speed of change.” “In the crypto industry, technology and trends change quickly,” she said. “What’s appealing is that new ideas can be tested just as quickly as the pace of change.” She continued, “Another appeal is the people. In the crypto scene, there are especially many people who have a clear picture of their own future. Talking with them makes me feel like my world is expanding.”

She also spoke about the essence of crypto technology. “The effectiveness of any technology depends on how much better value it provides (to users),” she said. “Like the subtitle of the Bitcoin (BTC) white paper, I think the core of blockchain ultimately lies in whether it can build a better financial system.” The subtitle of the Bitcoin white paper, published by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008, is “A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.”

After the interview, we chatted briefly off the record. Yoon said she would depart for the U.K. the next day. “I can work at Plasma without worry thanks to my husband’s support,” she said. “Since he understands, I feel I need to make my time in London count, so I work even more intensely.”

Yoon said she would stay at the cafe to finish the rest of her work. More than half of the sandwich on the table was still left. Pointing to it, she laughed and said, “Lunch and dinner.”

This interview did not receive any support or monetary compensation from any specific restaurant or brand, and was conducted without commercial intent. The ‘Blooming Lunch’ series is intended to feature candid interviews in a casual setting at a regular restaurant favored by the interviewee.