Soon Yu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Taiwanese writer

Born (1965-08-05) August 5, 1965 (age 60)

Taiwan

EducationUniversity of California, Davis (BS)
Stanford University (MBA)

Organization(s)Writer, public speaker, consultant

Websitewww.soonyu.com

Soon Yu

Born	(1965-08-05) August 5, 1965 (age 60) Taiwan
Education	University of California, Davis (BS) Stanford University (MBA)
Organization(s)	Writer, public speaker, consultant
Website	www.soonyu.com

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]

Career

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]

He is host of the Aconic Podcast, which won Signal Awards Gold in the Genre - Diversity, Equity and Inclusion^[21] for its episode with Sheila Lirio Marcelo, CEO of Ohai.ai and founder of Care.com.

Other guests that the podcast has featured are Kristi Yamaguchi, Jeremy Lin, Andrew Yang, Lisa Ling, Elaine Chao, Joe Bae (KKR), Manny Maceda, Abigail Hing Wen, Ashley Liao, Dan Tani, Janet Yang, Tiffany Chang, Bing Chen, Guy Kawasaki, Mayor Aftab Pureval, Charles Yu, Jenny Ming, and Deb Liu.^[22]

Writings

Books

Soon Yu, Dave Birss (May 24, 2022). Friction: Adding Value By Making People Work for It. ZenKarma Media. ISBN 979–8985967210
Soon Yu, Dave Birss (February 6, 2018). Iconic Advantage: Don't chase the new, innovate the old. Savio Republic. ISBN 978-1682615409

References

↑ "Iconic Brands in the Age of Anarchy with Soon Yu". MS Strategic Design & Management. 2018-04-24. Retrieved 2021-03-26.
↑ Peter Rubin, James (2000-06-12). "Business Acceleration". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-06-23.
↑ "Adding friction can heighten customer value and build relationships". Justin Brady. 12 January 2022. Retrieved 2022-07-11.
↑ "Soon Yu". Forbes. Retrieved 2025-07-27.
↑ "A Nose for Business / Entrepreneur molds his startup dreams into allergy-products specialty store". SFGate. 1999-03-31. Retrieved 2018-11-28.
↑ "The Secrets of Staying Power". Stanford Graduate School of Business. Retrieved 2018-11-28.
↑ Nishi, Dennis (2014-12-07). "How to Break Your Bad Work Habits". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2017-04-14.
↑ "How removing fear can be your innovation trump card". Washington Post. Retrieved 2017-04-14.
↑ "Art and Science Leads to Iconic Products". www.vfc.com. Retrieved 2018-12-27.
↑ Eu, Geoffrey (2017-08-12). "Soon Yu". The Business Times. Retrieved 2018-12-29.
↑ Sinton, Peter (March 31, 1999). "A Nose for Business / Entrepreneur molds his startup dreams into allergy-products specialty store". SFGate.
↑ Sinton, Peter (1999-03-31). "A Nose for Business / Entrepreneur molds his startup dreams into allergy-products specialty store". SFGate. Retrieved 2018-12-29.
↑ "Chiquita Brands International, Inc in Franklin Park, IL 60131 - ChamberofCommerce.com". www.chamberofcommerce.com. Retrieved 2018-12-29.
↑ Rubin, James Peter (May 14, 2001). "No Surrender". The Wall Street Journal.
↑ Donovan, Aaron (2000-04-02). "IN BRIEF; Can blessyou.com Be Far Behind?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-04-14.
1 2 "The Hybrid Company: Reach All Your Customers Through Multi-Channels Anytime, Anywhere - PDF Free Download". epdf.tips. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
↑ "Gazoontite Seeks Brand Awareness Offline". Los Angeles Times. 1999-11-08. Retrieved 2021-06-18.
↑ "Gazoontite: Going, Going, Gone". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2021-06-18.
↑ "NYC Big Book Award Winners". nyc-big-book-award. Retrieved 2023-07-19.
↑ "2019 Medalists". axiomawards.com. 31 October 2019. Retrieved 2022-08-24.
↑ "Winners". Signal Awards. Retrieved 2026-03-08.
↑ "Episodes". Aconic Podcast. Retrieved 2026-03-08.

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