A chance meeting.
A shared direction.
Long before Ponds Global Partners existed, its founders met by chance in Korea. Sixteen years later, two very different careers converged around an idea that had been present in their friendship from the beginning: connecting Korea and North America.
It started with a conversation in Korea.
In 2010, Yakubu Agbese was living and teaching in Korea. During a holiday, he stopped at a shopping center, sat down, and struck up a conversation with a stranger.
That stranger was Jake Lee.
What began as an unlikely meeting became a friendship spanning more than fifteen years, two countries, and very different professional careers. Jake went on to build and lead businesses across Asia for some of the world’s best-known consumer brands. Yakubu built a career in technology, growth marketing, venture investing and go-to-market strategy.
Years later, those careers converged around an idea that had been present in their friendship from the beginning: connecting Korea and North America.
Entering a market is one thing. Building a business there is another.
Companies expanding internationally rarely lack ambition. What they often lack is the local infrastructure to turn that ambition into a working business.
Finding the right partners. Understanding customers. Opening distribution channels. Adapting positioning and pricing. Building demand. Managing relationships on the ground. And doing all of it before there is enough business to justify building a full local organization.
Ponds Global Partners was created to bridge that gap.
We combine market-entry strategy with hands-on commercial execution, helping companies move from considering a market to operating in it.
New sources of growth.
As Korea’s domestic market matures, established Korean businesses increasingly look beyond their home market for the next stage of growth.
A generational transition.
Succession challenges among founder-led and family-owned businesses can create opportunities for partnerships, acquisitions and new ownership.
A sophisticated consumer market.
Korea’s affluent consumers, advanced digital economy and growing cultural influence continue to make the market compelling to international brands.
Markets are made of people, relationships and decisions.
Two careers built across markets.
Ponds combines international operating experience and trusted commercial relationships with growth, technology and go-to-market expertise.
Jangwon “Jake” Lee
Jake’s career has been shaped by a fascination with how businesses cross borders, adapt to new cultures and become genuinely local.
A Korean executive with more than three decades of international experience, he has built his career helping global companies establish and grow businesses across Asia. His work has taken him from Seoul to Malaysia, Singapore, Boston and Tokyo, with leadership roles at companies including Mars, Mattel, Keurig, KitchenAid, Lifetime Brands and Ricola.
Across those roles, Jake has repeatedly been asked to turn unfamiliar markets into operating businesses. At Mars Drinks, he led six Asian markets with full P&L responsibility. As Keurig’s first hire in Asia, he established its Korean legal entity, led the company’s first Asian market launch and supported the identification and development of OEM partnerships in Japan. He later established and led KitchenAid’s Korean business, managed Korea and Japan for Lifetime Brands, and oversaw four Northeast Asian markets for Ricola.
Jake’s experience has taught him that successful market entry requires more than recognizing an opportunity. It requires understanding how people actually do business: the customers, relationships, distribution channels and cultural differences that determine whether a strategy works once it leaves the presentation deck.
Across those experiences runs a common thread: understanding unfamiliar markets, building trusted relationships and turning international ambition into businesses that work locally.
Yakubu Agbese
Yakubu’s career has been shaped by a curiosity about how new ideas create value, how technology changes markets, and how businesses connect with customers across cultures.
After graduating from Yale, he moved to Korea, where he spent five years living and working. An early experience translating Korean business presentations into English sparked a deeper interest in business and eventually brought him back to the United States to earn an MBA in Investment Management.
He entered the technology and growth industry in 2014, building experience across consumer technology, mobile applications, fintech and digital businesses. At Ampush, he managed more than $30 million in growth-marketing investment for companies including Zynga and Dollar Shave Club. He later led user acquisition for Texture, which became part of Apple News+, reducing acquisition costs by more than 50%, and developed software that replaced approximately $200,000 in annual third-party technology costs.
Yakubu subsequently moved into venture capital as Head of Marketing and Investment Principal at Frontier Ventures. There, he worked directly with founders on growth, positioning and go-to-market strategy while conducting market and growth diligence supporting $15 million invested across 13 companies. He developed investment theses that led to early investments in two companies that later achieved unicorn status and led marketing initiatives that helped Frontier raise $10 million in capital.
He later co-founded DigiSpark Media, where he built and led a six-person growth team spanning strategy, creative, analytics and execution. His work has combined commercial strategy with hands-on technical execution, from building customer-acquisition systems and advising founders on go-to-market strategy to developing proprietary software and using analytics to improve how companies allocate capital and reach customers.
Across those experiences runs a common thread: learning new technologies, thinking independently and turning unfamiliar markets and ideas into practical opportunities for growth.
A partnership built over time.
Ponds began with a chance meeting in Korea in 2010. Since then, Jake and Yakubu have stayed close through different countries, careers and stages of life.
That history gives the firm something that is difficult to manufacture: trust, candor and a clear understanding of how the other works when the answer isn’t obvious.
Cross-border business often means making decisions with incomplete information, unfamiliar partners and real capital at stake. Experience matters. So does knowing who you want beside you when things get complicated.
Different experience.
One objective.
Successful market entry requires more than understanding a market. And sustainable growth requires more than reaching customers. Companies need both.
International expansion often breaks down in the space between the two: distribution without demand, demand without local infrastructure, or strategy without the relationships necessary to execute it.
Ponds brings those pieces together.
Build the business in the market.
Jake brings decades of experience establishing local operations, developing distributor and commercial relationships, opening channels, managing regional businesses and turning global strategies into decisions that work locally.
Build demand around the business.
Yakubu brings experience positioning products, acquiring customers, developing growth systems, applying technology and analytics, and helping companies discover where and how they can grow.
Experience that crosses industries.
Companies where our partners have held roles or delivered professional work, prior to Ponds Global Partners.
MarsMars
MattelMattel
KeurigKeurig
KitchenAidKitchenAid
OKXOKX
IMVUIMVU
AppleAppleSelected companies from the founders’ prior professional experience. Logos identify those organizations only; no Ponds client relationship, endorsement, or affiliation is implied.
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