Soon Yu


Soon Yu is a Taiwanese-American speaker and an adjunct professor at The New School's Parsons School of Design. Yu is an expert in innovation and design and is the author of the book, 'Iconic Advantage'. He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Entrepreneur Magazine, and New York Times, and is a Forbes contributor.

Early life

Yu was born in Taiwan and moved to Davis, California, at age 3, where his father was an agricultural geneticist. Soon received his BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Davis in 1988 and his MBA from Stanford University in 1993.

Career

Soon has served as the global VP of innovation and as a corporate officer for VF Corporation from 2010 to 2016. Prior to working at VF Corporation, he has also worked at The Clorox Company as brand manager, customer marketing group manager, and general manager; Advanced Micro Devices as an engineer; and Bain & Company, as an associate consultant. Other positions held were CEO and founder of Gazoontite.com, general manager at Chiquita Brands International, and chief marketing advisor at SafeWeb.
In 1997, Yu left his management position at Clorox to pursue a sales associate position at Crate & Barrel, taking an 85% pay cut and earring $5/hour to gain retail experience.
In 1998, Yu founded Gazoontite, a multi-channel e-tailer offering products, services, and information to “help people breathe happier and healthier”. The launch included a comprehensive e-commerce site, a mail-order catalog, and several retail stores. The now forgotten retail establishment was one of the first retail/eCommerce companies to promote and build an entire model around the multi-channel shopping environment. Two years after its launch, Gazoontite was known as the “poster child of Web-era excess and stupidity”, however, in the process Yu set the tone for what is now referred to as omni-channel retailing.
He has received the Webby Award, Favorite Website Award, Dope Award and Northern California finalist for the Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” award. His book, Iconic Advantage, won the 2019 Axiom Business Book Award in Advertising / Marketing / PR / Event Planning.

Writings

Books
Articles