Senior EVice President & President of Western Regional of Bank of Hope, Hope Bancorp
Search every verified Jason Kim interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Jason Kim, Senior Executive Vice President and President of the Western Region of Bank of Hope at Hope Bancorp, has been involved in several ventures outside of banking. In January 2025, he appeared on the "I Hope to Hear This" podcast, where he discussed his professional background, including his work in insurance sales, financial advisory at Merrill Lynch, and his family's import-export business. He described his career as a series of "twists and turns" and attributed his current position to divine guidance, stating that "God led me to where I am now." He also spoke about his experience with law school debt, which he said was eventually written off by the government after his school was found to have taken advantage of financial programs. In September 2024, Kim co-founded a social finance application called Lunch Break, which he described as a platform that puts "your calendar and inbox on chain that pays." He stated that the app allows users to earn Ethereum for their time and attention, and includes features such as "lunch tables and seats" that function as a staking and reputation layer. Kim noted that the app launched its public beta on the Base Ethereum network and includes an onchain revenue share mechanism. Earlier, in December 2015, Kim organized an educational dental conference called the Jason J Kim Amplify Dental Conference, featuring speakers on sales techniques and cosmetic dentistry, where he said he aimed to improve communication between doctors, patients, and staff.
“I came out of law school with the debt the size of a house, so I always stressed out I'm never going to be able to buy anything or do anything, and eventually I think God was decided to be merciful and just allow things to happen in a way where the government just wrote off my entire debt because they found that John M...”
“State Farm had like a witch hunt and they kicked out a lot of agents, including myself, unjustly fired, because they decided to clean house and got rid of people involved in shady practices, and I was caught in the middle of it too.”
“Bank of America and Merrill Lynch have a bridge for people like me who clearly have the capabilities; they don't like to fire people outright because they hired them for a reason, so instead they gave me an opportunity to work in the banking sector.”
“Business ownership is structured in a way where unless you bend the rules and find the loopholes, it's impossible to profit; you have to figure out a way to kind of like weasel around and figure things out.”
“The market where my produce store was located was originally set up to provide for people who had no means, supported by food stamps, but gentrification and political changes have made it impossible for the vendors to survive, as the customer base changed drastically.”
“My dad runs a business importing and exporting casters, the small rubber wheels you see on carts and things that you roll around, and he's been in that line of work since we came to America.”
“I see the interconnections between jobs and techniques; financial advisory was just a fancier version of insurance sales, talking to people about providing a service for a need, mostly people who have money.”
“Putting on a suit and going to the office really affects me mentally; after being rung dry and waking up at 3:00 in the morning every day, I was empty enough to realize I needed to rely on God and not just myself.”
“God led me to where I am now; this is the first time in my life where I really feel it, like I'm passing through a door and feeling a lot of His grace and what He's trying to teach me in a real way.”
“There's a fear for people with 9 to 5 jobs that if you fail at one thing, you'll never get a job again, but there are a lot of things out there; as Christians, we never know how God will use the things we go through for His glory.”
“The main core thesis of lunch break is that we're putting your calendar and inbox on chain that pays; your attention is valuable nowadays.”
“On lunch break we're here to fight spam and also make sure your attention is not necessarily gatekept but protected from bots and people trying to show you things.”
“We've built a mechanism that allows anybody to set up an onchain bounty for your attention, starting with message replies as well as 15-minute time slots or calls.”
“Unlike LinkedIn where money goes to Microsoft, with lunch break we're aligning those incentives from the person that sends the message to the platform to the user, and you can earn everything transacted on base Ethereum for now.”
“We have a social finance feature called lunch tables and seats, which act as a staking and reputation layer for who you think has value for their time or might be your friends or colleagues you want to support.”
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