No mirror to borrow: Leading without a template

Professor Hannah Jun is the International Business Major Director at Ewha Womans University’s Graduate School of International Studies, where she has been teaching for nearly a decade.

This could easily have been the topic of her talk when she spoke to The Gallery community on February 24th 2026.

However, she was not invited to speak about sustainability and governance. She was invited to share her own journey, and how she has become “the Instagram professor.”

Because Professor Jun is not just a leading academic in international business. She is also a modern educator who uses social media with intention thereby opening her classroom to the world.

What makes her stand out is not only that she uses social media, but how. She brings her authentic self into her work, expanding her accessibility beyond the classroom, allowing students across the world to connect with her thinking on a professional and personal level. It is, in many ways, a new take on teaching, within a world still shaped by tradition. At the talk she shared the story behind her personal brand and the winding road that led her there. Right to where she was meant to be.

Because her career did not begin in academia. Originally, she planned to attend law school. Instead, she spent several years at Lehman Brothers, working in a high-paced, high-demand environment. It was a world she thrived in. However, when she had children, she chose to step away. It felt, as she described it, like two incompatible lives.

And yet, stepping away came with a sense of loss. A feeling the majority of The Gallery community members recognise.

What followed was not a carefully planned transition, but a more one-foot-in-front-of-the-other kind of moment. She began teaching at Ewha, initially not as a long-term ambition, but simply because she wanted to do something, to engage, to contribute.

At that time, Ewha was facing a challenge: declining student applications. For this a task force was established, with a primary focus on improving the university’s website. But Professor Jun questioned whether this was truly where students were looking. By 2016, platforms such as Facebook and Instagram had already become central to how people discover, learn, and make decisions. So she decided to try something different.

Not as an official initiative, but as a personal one.

There was no backing from management. In a conservative academic environment, social media was not considered a serious strategy. But equally, there were no restrictions.

So she began.

What defined her approach from the outset was clarity of audience. She consistently returned to one question: who am I speaking to? Her answer was simple, her students. This shaped both what she communicated and how. Rather than focusing on what she herself wanted to share, she focused on what her students needed to understand, reflect on, and engage with. Over time, this developed into a distinct and authentic voice and today, that work has evolved into a strong personal brand.

Through her social media presence, Professor Jun connects with students globally, many of whom actively choose to study with her, even at PhD level. What was initially unconventional has become a clear differentiator.

Importantly, she also ensures that this work is visible within her institution. When new leadership is introduced or key decisions are being made, she presents structured overviews of her reach, engagement, and impact. In doing so, she translates something intangible into something tangible. 

Beyond the tangible outcomes, her work reflects a broader shift. She is not adapting herself to fit traditional expectations of academia. She is not minimizing qualities such as empathy, relational leadership, or what is often referred to as soft power. She is using them deliberately. And in doing so, she offers an alternative model of what leadership - and academia - can look like.

As her talk came to an end, two reflections stayed with me.

The first was a reminder that careers are rarely linear. Her journey was shaped not by a predefined plan, but by a willingness to act, to explore, and to respond to changing circumstances. But also a generosity with her time, knowledge and relations. It also made me reflect on how, as expat partners, we sometimes place significant pressure on ourselves to define a clear path forward, trying to connect the dots before they exist, even though we know they tend to make more sense looking back.

The second was a reaffirmation of something we continue to see: Authenticity in professional life is a superpower. Even when it means standing out. Actually perhaps especially then. Because if you do find yourself standing out, the question is not how to soften it, but how to use it.

Through her work, Professor Jun has built more than a platform. She has created a point of connection between future students, current students, and alumni across the world. And through that, she continues to share her work in sustainability and governance quietly shaping a new generation of change-makers.

Not by following an existing path.

But by creating one.