I'm Nara Lee. I'm curious about how people make decisions, what data can reveal, and how ideas can become something useful.
I'm a University of Toronto graduate with a background in management and economics, interested in how people, data, and curiosity can lead to better decisions.
At Coupang and Alchera, I gained firsthand experience understanding business needs and communicating with customers. During my military service, I developed an information-sharing system to improve daily coordination and helped bring fellow soldiers' stories to life through events and film.
I enjoy asking questions, turning ideas into tangible projects, and learning from the people who use them. Whether I'm exploring customer behavior or building a baseball analytics model, I believe the best ideas grow through curiosity, experimentation, and reflection.
Adapted seller conversations based on account history and status. Updated contact details and conversation notes in Salesforce, provided basic platform and advertising guidance, and prepared handoffs to advertising consultants.
Researched prospective customers for Aiir-Pass and prioritized outreach. Turned product brochure content into a PowerPoint website proposal and presented it internally. Relayed production updates and team feedback between an external video vendor and the sales team.
Served in company supply administration and co-created a digital information board, leading the PowerPoint interface design. Interviewed festival participants, co-wrote hosting scripts, and provided live football commentary.
Five different ways of listening, making, and learning.
An interactive model predicting MLB hitter free-agent contracts using historical data, with transparent explanations, validation, and contract-length scenarios.
As a baseball fan, I often wondered how teams determine what a free agent is worth. Rather than simply comparing contracts, I wanted to understand how player performance, age, position, and market conditions influence contract length and value.
I independently explored the research questions, compiled historical contract and player data, and developed a regression-based prediction model. I compared different model specifications, tested predictions against past markets, and created an English-Korean Streamlit app to make the results interactive and understandable.
Using 308 historical contracts from 2020–2026, I conducted time-ordered validation across 181 contracts from the 2023–2026 markets. The model performed better on smaller contracts but tended to underestimate larger deals. This highlighted the importance of understanding a model's limitations rather than relying solely on its predictions.
A mobile web prototype designed to help my grandfather hear familiar answers in our family's own voices, even when we cannot be there to respond.
My grandfather often asked simple, familiar questions that family members could answer when we were together, but not always when we were apart. I wanted to bridge that gap without replacing our voices with AI-generated responses. Instead, I imagined a tool that could recognize his questions and play answers recorded by our family.
I defined the problem, designed the user experience, and used ChatGPT and Claude to help plan and implement the prototype. Testing with my grandmother revealed two challenges: speech recognition struggled with her pronunciation, and the interface was not intuitive enough. Rather than expecting users to adapt to the technology, I guided changes toward keyword-based intent recognition and a simpler interface built around one large microphone button.
With guidance, my grandfather was able to ask a question and hear a familiar family recording. However, finding and opening the app independently remained a challenge. This experience taught me that making something work is only the beginning. A useful product must also fit naturally into the lives of the people it is designed for.
A semester-long university team project with input from Loblaw representatives, exploring a meal-kit concept to support children’s cultural belonging and ease caregivers’ preparation burden.
Our team initially explored multicultural grab-and-go meals. After interviewing a friend about their childhood lunchbox experiences in an immigrant family, I brought a new question to the team: How might we help children feel comfortable sharing food from their culture while making preparation easier for caregivers?
I conducted the interview and proposed connecting food with familiar animation, children’s creators, and games. I created AI-assisted visuals, prepared and demonstrated the physical concept prototype, and produced a video in which I played a children’s YouTuber to illustrate a potential collaboration. The meal-kit concept was developed jointly by our five-person team. (Click the project image to watch the video I created.)
We presented our concept and prototype to Loblaw representatives and faculty. The proposal was not adopted. Feedback highlighted the potential cost of content partnerships, helping me understand the importance of balancing creative ideas with feasibility. Children’s positive reactions to the video offered early encouragement, but did not establish purchase demand.
What would motivate an offline lottery customer to connect an account? Starting with retail observations, we proposed a customer journey linking QR scanning, digital rewards, and account registration.
In a university course project involving OLG representatives, we were asked to propose ways to encourage consistent customer identification across sales channels. Each team member observed nearby lottery retailers. I noticed that the paper-ticket purchasing process offered no obvious prompt to connect an OLG account. Our team focused on first-job professionals aged 24–28 and explored how to make account connection feel quick, simple, and worth their time.
I observed the retail environment, researched younger consumers’ engagement and reward preferences, and handled the target-audience and problem-reframing sections. I approached the challenge from the customer’s perspective: what value would make sharing information worthwhile? In our presentation, I explained the target selection, examined existing assumptions, and introduced the reframed problem. Our six-person team jointly developed The Luck Exchange, a concept inviting customers to scan a paper ticket’s QR code, experience digital rewards, and connect an account.
We presented the proposal to OLG representatives and received positive feedback on its approach and creativity, but it was not adopted. Feedback highlighted the scope of implementation, including ticket-printing changes, website development, and customer education. I learned to consider both what motivates customers to participate and the operational changes needed to deliver that experience.
Two short films created with a team of first-time filmmakers, exploring how framing and visual storytelling shape an audience’s understanding.
During my military service, I suggested that fellow film-club members enter a military-only 70-second film competition marking the Korea–U.S. alliance’s 70th anniversary. None of our five team members had filmmaking experience, so we divided responsibilities and learned with equipment and technical guidance from our public affairs officer. Our first film used tension and a twist, but command feedback revealed that its context and message were difficult to follow.
I operated the camera for both films, planned framing and actor movements, directed performances, and suggested editing approaches to our editor. For the second film, command supplied a story about one student sharing an umbrella with another. Applying the feedback from our first film, I placed the helping student at the edges of earlier shots so their presence felt established before the encounter, making the sequence feel more connected and intentional.
Both films were submitted as our command’s representative entries but did not reach the final shortlist. All five team members received commendations from the Commander of the Capital Defense Command. The experience taught me to look beyond individual dramatic shots and consider whether viewers could follow the story without additional explanation, then translate that lesson into concrete directing choices.
I’m drawn to understanding what matters to people—and why. As AI becomes part of how we work and create, I believe empathy remains essential: listening closely, recognizing someone’s circumstances, and understanding what they need. That’s what draws me to marketing and sales. I want to turn that understanding into clear communication and meaningful value.
In our Loblaw project, one person’s memory of bringing lunch to school changed how we defined the problem. In my family voice app, I chose recorded family voices because familiarity was central to the experience I wanted to create. These projects reflect how I want to work: use technology thoughtfully, and begin with the person who will experience the result.
I love sports for the human moments that numbers alone can’t explain. Statistics help me understand what happens on the field, but they can’t fully capture what a game means to the people who play it or the people who watch it together. The joy, heartbreak, pride, and memories we share are what make sports so special to me.
Some of my earliest memories are of watching Park Ji-sung play with my father and going to baseball games together. In elementary and middle school, playing soccer and baseball brought me friendships and memories of my own. When I moved to Canada in high school, watching Son Heung-min and Hyun-jin Ryu succeed made me proud of where I came from and gave me something to share with new friends in an unfamiliar place. Looking back, sports have always been there, connecting me to my family, my friends, and the places I've called home. Without sports, so much of my story would be missing.
This archive will hold personal stories, learning notes, and sports perspectives. The first pieces are being developed; published writing will appear here when it’s ready.
Personal stories, things I’m learning, and perspectives on baseball and beyond.
I’m exploring marketing and sales opportunities in Toronto. I’d love to talk about understanding customers and partners, or the intersection of sports and business.
Learn more about my experience or get in touch.