Soon Yu | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | August 5, 1965 Taiwan |
| Education | University of California, Davis (BS) Stanford University (MBA) |
| Organization(s) | Writer, public speaker, consultant |
| Website | www |
Soon Yu (born August 5, 1965) is a Taiwanese-American speaker, writer and former adjunct professor at The New School's Parsons School of Design. [1] Yu is the founder of Gazoontite, the author of the book Iconic Advantage [2] and Friction [3] , and host of Aconic Podcast. [4]
Yu was born in Taiwan and moved at age 3 to Davis, California, where his father was an agricultural geneticist. [5] Soon received his BS in electrical engineering from the University of California, Davis in 1988 and his MBA from Stanford University in 1993. [6]
Soon served as the global VP of innovation and as a corporate officer for VF Corporation from 2010 to 2016. [7] [8] [9] Prior to working at VF Corporation, he has also worked at The Clorox Company [10] He left his management position at Clorox to pursue a sales associate position at Crate & Barrel, taking an 85% pay cut and earning $5/hour to gain retail experience. [11] He has also held positions as an engineer with Advanced Micro Devices, an associate consultant with Bain & Company, [12] general manager at Chiquita Brands International, [13] and chief marketing officer at SafeWeb. [14]
In 1998, Yu founded Gazoontite, a retailer of allergy and asthma related products. [15] [16] [17] It was one of the first retail/eCommerce companies to promote and build its business model around the multi-channel shopping environment. [16] [18]
His book, Friction: Adding Value By Making People Work For It won the 2022 NYC Big Book Award in Sales & Marketing. [19] His book, Iconic Advantage, won the 2019 Axiom Business Book Award in Advertising / Marketing / PR / Event Planning. [20]
Books