Ji Mi Choi serves as the director and lead instructor of the ASU-led, NSF-funded I-Corps Hub: Desert and Pacific Region leading eight other university partners in the $15M program. Reporting to EVP and University Provost Nancy Gonzales who serves as PI of the grant, Ji Mi leverages her years of experience as a startup founder, ecosystem builder, and from November 2015 - October 2022, her experience with the ASU Knowledge Enterprise, last serving as vice president.
Ji Mi also led the J. Orin Edson Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute as founding executive director in service to ASU students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the greater community. Since 2015, Ji Mi led Entrepreneurship + Innovation and grew it to become a named and endowed institute in September 2020. Over her seven year service, Ji Mi and the team led the design of E+I, its organizational structure, and grew the programs to more than 24, the team to more than 45 professional staff, the place-based innovation spaces to five locations, and raised nearly $75M in external funding.
Previously, Ji Mi served in various fast-paced and evolving roles at New York University: early in her career at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at the Tisch School of the Arts before new media was new media; later at the Polytechnic University (now the Tandon School of Engineering at NYU), first serving as vice president for strategic initiatives and chief of staff to the president, then later serving as the senior director of integration, leading the merger between the two institutions; and subsequently serving as the assistant vice president for global programs planning. Ji Mi has also served at the world-renowned Earth Institute at Columbia University, ultimately as chief of staff and assistant deputy director.
A long-time New Yorker by way of Seoul and an avid internationalist, Ji Mi has served in a leadership role for the United Nations Development Programme and in various capacities for numerous start-up organizations, both not-for-profit and for-profit (helping take a company public in the days of the dot-com boom), and has been involved in political campaigns.
Ji Mi serves on the boards of the StartupAZ Foundation, Springer Nature's U.S. Research Advisory Council, and numerous other local and national advisory councils and committees for entrepreneur-supporting organizations and programs. She is a regular advocate and national speaker on inclusive entrepreneurship. Ji Mi is a certified NSF I-Corps national instructor.