Catalyst, Founder & CEO

So-Young Kang is Catalyst, Founder & CEO of Awaken Group, a global leadership development and organizational experience design firm passionate about transforming the world through inspiring and developing “human, creative, adaptive” leaders. So-Young loves people, organizations and systems. She and her team design organizations, how people interact with each other, and work with individuals to better align what’s inside with what’s on the outside to develop innovative solutions and create beautiful experiences.

So-Young has been leading cultural transformations, coaching, training and maximizing performance of organizations for nearly 15 years starting from her experiences as a change agent at Citibank to her most recent experiences at McKinsey where she was a global expert in designing and implementing value-based performance management systems through cultural transformation, coaching and organizational experience design.

So-Young is passionate about integrating East-West values and mindsets and has traveled around the world to observe, listen, experience, and be transformed so that she, in turn, can catalyze sustainable change. She has traveled to over 30 countries globally and has advised leaders in over fifty client situations across the Americas, Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East as an expert on topics such as leadership, organizational design, strategy and vision, performance management and KPIs, cultural transformation, and top team engagement. She has deep expertise and love for Asia given her experience working in and around the region for nearly 20 years and her fluency in Korean and Japanese.

She is committed to serving the community and founded The Young Professionals’ Group in 2000, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping students achieve their professional dreams. This non-profit, just expanded into Singapore, rewards character over grades and focuses on providing financial support and advice from a highly successful, global network of advisors. She often is called upon to advise and provide expertise to numerous non-profits and causes around the world. She loves new ideas and new ventures. She is also a TED-ster and has been a TEDx speaker.

So-Young holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA dual degree with honors in International Relations and East Asian studies from University of Pennsylvania with a minor in Music Theory. Prior experiences include McKinsey & Company, Citigroup, and Chiba Convention Bureau in Japan.

So-Young loves to snowboard, scuba dive, travel around the world, play piano and meet different people.