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Young Sohn
Sohn at the 2018 Web Summit
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Pennsylvania
MIT Sloan School of Management
Known forFormer President of Samsung Electronics
Korean name
Hangul
손영권
Revised RomanizationSon Yeonggwon
McCune–ReischauerSon Yŏngkwŏn

Young Sohn (Korean: 손영권) is a Korean-American business executive and investor. He was the president and chief strategy officer of Samsung Electronics.[1][2] Sohn is also the chairman of the board of Harman International Industries, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics,[3] and currently serves as Senior Advisor to Samsung.[2]

During his career, Sohn has acted as either chief executive officer or as a board member to PLX Technology, Synnex and Inphi Corporation, and has been recognized as "the best-connected chip executive in the semiconductor industry."[4]

Early life and education

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Sohn graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BS in electrical engineering and received an MS from the MIT Sloan School of Management.[5]

Career

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Early career

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Sohn joined Intel as a product marketing manager and later became its director of new business development. As director of new business development, Sohn oversaw the creation of Intel's PC chipset business.[5] He also formed the company's inaugural joint venture with Samsung Electronics.[6] Sohn was Vice President of Marketing, and later, Co-President of Quantum Corporation. He was also appointed president of the company's Storage Group.[7] Sohn was a chairman and chief executive officer at Oak Technology, a digital media semiconductor company. During his time with the company, he oversaw the acquisition by Zoran Corporation.[8]

Sohn was the president of Agilent Technologies' semiconductor group, the launch of its spin-off entity, Avago as a senior advisor of Silver Lake.[8] Sohn helped form Panorama Capital, a venture capital firm which spun off from JP Morgan Partners.[8] He was also a senior advisor to One Laptop per Child with MIT Media Lab. He was the president and chief executive officer of Inphi Corporation. Sohn led the company's initial public offering.[9]

Samsung

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In 2012, Sohn was appointed corporate president and Chief strategy officer of Samsung Electronics. Sohn's promotion marked the company's first president-level appointment of an executive outside of Korea.[6] By 2013, Samsung Electronics had announced that Sohn would also head the Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center.[10] He secured the $8 billion acquisition of Harman International Industries, which marked Samsung's entry into the autonomous vehicle industry.[11][12] Following the acquisition, Sohn became chairman of the board of directors of Harman.[13][14]

Sohn has represented Samsung at technology conferences and gatherings. In 2015, he organized Samsung's first CEO Summit.[15] Sohn delivered a keynote address on AI at Web Summit and has spoken at SLUSH, the Tech for Good Summit with French President Emmanuel Macron, and additional international gatherings of members of the technology industry.[16][17]

In 2014, Sohn, along with Bill Tai from Charles River Ventures, founded the Extreme Tech Challenge, or XTC, a nonprofit startup competition that aims to address United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals.[18][19][20][21] The same year, he co-founded Vlocity, a cloud-applications software company.[22]

In 2017, Sohn launched the $300 million Samsung Automotive Innovation Fund, to focus on connected car investments.[14]

In 2019, Sohn was honored with a Trail Blazer award at the Asia America Multitechnology Association 40th anniversary dinner and with a Corporate Leader Award by the Korean American Community Foundation of San Francisco.[23][24]

In July 2020, Sohn led a $14 million series B investment into genomics startup Genome Medical, via Samsung’s venture fund, called Samsung Catalyst Fund.[25]

Post-Samsung presidency

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In 2022, Sohn was replaced by Lee Young-hee as president of Samsung Electronics.[26]

Board memberships

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Sohn sits on the MIT Sloan School North America Board, and is a member of the board of directors at Cadence Design Systems.[27] He has been a senior advisor for Silver Lake Partners since 2012.[28] Sohn is also an advisor to Bitfury, Zoom Video Communications and the University of California Innovation Council.[citation needed][29]

He has also sat on the boards of ARM, Synnex Corporation, Cymer, Inc. Hyundai Electronics (now SK Hynix) and PLX Technology.[30] Sohn is chairman of the Global Corporate Venturing leadership society, a membership organization for corporate venture capitalists.[31]

In 2023, Sohn was appointed to the advisory board of Astra Protocol, a decentralized KYC platform for Web3.[32]

References

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  1. ^ Premack, Rachel. "Why Samsung Thinks The Key To Its Future (And Profits) Could Be In The Auto Sector". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  2. ^ a b "Young Sohn". Harman. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
  3. ^ "Harman CEO to receive hefty bonus on Samsung merger". www.theinvestor.co.kr. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  4. ^ Clarke, Peter. "London Calling: The best-connected chip executive". EETimes. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  5. ^ a b Rogers, Bruce. "Helping a Korean Electronics Giant Stay Nimble". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  6. ^ a b Leber, Jessica. "Why Samsung's Man in Silicon Valley Uses Apple Devices". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  7. ^ "Personnel File". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  8. ^ a b c Clarke, Peter. "Young Sohn joins venture capital startup". EETimes. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  9. ^ Clarke, Peter. "Inphi IPO raises $81.6 million". EETimes. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  10. ^ Lilien, Niv (2015-03-05). "Inside Samsung's innovation center: The Israel hub hothousing the next big thing in tech". Zdnet. Retrieved 2019-02-05.
  11. ^ "Samsung to buy car tech company Harman for $8 billion". Reuters (in French). 2016-11-15. Archived from the original on February 2, 2019. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  12. ^ "Samsung enters autonomous driving race with new business, funding". Reuters. 2017-09-14. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  13. ^ Nash, Elliot. "channelnews : New CEO & President Of Harman 'Unanimously Elected'". Retrieved 2021-04-25.
  14. ^ a b Lunden, Ingrid (14 September 2017). "Samsung launches $300M autonomous driving fund, puts $90M into TTTech". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-04-25.
  15. ^ Su, Jean Baptiste. "Samsung Details Investment Strategy At Third Annual CEO Summit In San Francisco". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  16. ^ Edwards, Jim. "Samsung president says 'we should really worry about ethics' as artificial intelligence moves into your DNA". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  17. ^ "50 tech CEOs come to Paris to talk about tech for good". TechCrunch. 23 May 2018. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  18. ^ Cohen, Jeff. "Extreme Tech Challenge Looked for Tomorrow's Startup Stars, Says Samsung President". Cheddar. Retrieved 2020-07-28.
  19. ^ Tiku, Nitasha (2015-01-09). "Absurd CES startup contest ends with Richard Branson flying the losers to his private island". The Verge. Retrieved 2020-07-28.
  20. ^ Mayes, Kima (2020-04-18). "Extreme Tech Challenge 2020: Solve the world's most extreme problems". AlphaGamma. Retrieved 2020-08-21.
  21. ^ Spiro, James (2020-07-16). "ReWire and TytoCare among the winners of Extreme Tech Challenge 2020". CTECH - www.calcalistech.com. Retrieved 2021-04-25.
  22. ^ "Profile:Young Sohn". Forbes. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
  23. ^ 신영주 자. "[KACF-SF 제4회 기금모금 갈라] 하나가 빚어낸 아름다운 유산 - 미주 한국일보". m.koreatimes.com. Retrieved 2020-08-21.
  24. ^ Bay, Marina (2019-11-16). "AAMA Gala 2019 - Red Carpet Interviews". BeFast.TV. Retrieved 2020-08-21.
  25. ^ Tibken, Shara. "Samsung invests in genetics-focused telehealth company as coronavirus rages". CNET. Retrieved 2021-04-25.
  26. ^ Park Jae-hyuk (December 5, 2022). "Samsung Electronics' 1st female president shatters glass ceiling". Korea Times. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
  27. ^ Banerjee, Sudarshana (2013-02-13). "Cadence Elects Samsung's Young K. Sohn To Board Of Directors". TechTaffy. Retrieved 2021-04-25.
  28. ^ "Cadence elects Young K. Sohn to board of directors POST Online Media". www.poandpo.com. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  29. ^ "Bitfury board of advisors". Retrieved 2019-09-26.
  30. ^ "Hyundai names Oak Technology CEO to board in diversification bid". EETimes. Retrieved 2019-02-01.
  31. ^ Team, BS Web (2020-09-17). "GCV Powerlist 2020: 5 Indians among top 25 venture capitalists in the world". Business Standard India. Retrieved 2021-04-25.
  32. ^ "Former Samsung Corporate President and Chief Strategy Officer Young Sohn Joins Web3 Compliance Platform Astra Protocol as Advisor". Fintech Finance News. February 23, 2023. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
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