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So-Young Kang

Founder

Experienced advisor, speaker and transformation designer with 20 years of experience across US, Asia, Middle East and Europe

So-Young is Catalyst and Founder of multi-disciplinary Transformation Design (TD) firm Awaken Group that focuses on aligning people to strategy through taking organizations on a transformational journey to drive innovation and creativity. Pioneer of practice of Transformation Design (TD) globally. TD is the application of Design Thinking into larger purpose and values-driven transformations across companies, governments, and nations.

So-Young is an expert in experience design and one of the original Design Thinking facilitators since 2010. She has led multiple projects on values-based organizational design, customer experience design, service engagement strategy, process design, and space/messages globally for MNCs, SMEs and governments.

An expert in ‘human’ needs, organizational design, strategy and innovation, So-Young has served more than 30 clients (government, MNC, SME) in Singapore alone in the past 3 years requiring deep understanding of user needs and motivations to design innovative solutions and drive organizational change. She has ~20 years of experience advising business and government leaders globally for companies such as Microsoft, IMD, Seagate, Khazanah, SingTel and Housing Development Board.

In 2014, she was selected by the World Economic Forum to be a Young Global Leader. Previously, she was a Senior Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Company and was formerly Assistant Vice President at Citigroup (one of youngest in her batch).

So-Young has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA with honors from the University of Pennsylvania.

To So-Young, Transformation Design means intentionally living out your purpose and values in the way you lead, run and grow your company, industry and organization to make the world a more joyful and beautiful place. As Catalyst, So-Young loves to energize and motivate others toward being more whole, integrated humans in all areas of life—from personal life, to the companies and organizations they lead.