Kyung H. Yoon
Chief Executive Officer
Kyung is founder and Chief Executive Officer of Talent Age Associates. Prior to founding Talent Age, Kyung spent 14 years with Heidrick & Struggles, Inc., (NASDAQ: HSII), a global leader in the executive search industry, most recently as Vice Chairman. During her career with Heidrick & Struggles, Kyung was a leader in the firm’s expansion in Asia with management responsibility for the Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai and Seoul offices. Kyung conducted successful search projects for Fortune 500 and multinational clients including CP Group, CapitaLand, Dell, IBM, Komag, Maxtor, Merck, Microsoft, NCR, Nokia, NOL, Philips, Samsung, Seagate, SilTerra, Singapore Technologies, Sybase, TSMC and Unisys. In the financial services field, Kyung was retained by international investment banks and private equity/ venture capital firms such as Deutsche Bank, H&Q Asia Pacific, JPMorgan Partners, Kleiner Perkins, New Enterprise Associates, Newbridge Capital, PAMA, Venrock Associates, Walden International and Warburg Pincus.
In the field of executive coaching, Kyung is a certified coach with Newfield Network and has designed and led CEO and executive coaching programs for the Asia America MultiTechnology Association (AAMA), and corporate and individual executive clients.
Prior to Heidrick & Struggles, Kyung was President of Benten Investments, Inc., President of Pacific Union Asset Management and Vice President of Dillingham Development Company. Kyung began her career with Banque Nationale de Paris.
Kyung earned a B.A. degree in economics and French from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, and holds an M.B.A. degree in finance and marketing from the University of Chicago.
Kyung serves on the board of directors of SVB Financial Group (Nasdaq: SIVB). She is Trustee, past Chairman of the Board and President of the Asia America MultiTechnology Association. Kyung also serves on Stanford University's Project on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) Greater China Networks Project Advisory Board and the Advisory Board of Asia Society.
In 2008, Kyung received the “Women of the Year - Guiding Light Award for Leadership” from the Society of Asian Women Leaders. Kyung was also awarded the "2004 Asia Pacific Leadership Award" by the University of San Francisco Center for the Pacific Rim for building bridges of understanding between Asian cultures and the U.S. Kyung was recognized among the "Most Influential Women of 2003" by the American Cities Business Journal. She also was selected as one of the top executive recruiters in the world in Nancy Garrison-Jenn's book, "The Global 200 Executive Recruiters." In 2001, Kyung was awarded the Heidrick & Struggles Globe Trotter Award for her role in helping to expand the firm's presence internationally.
Kyung is frequent speaker at international and other executive conferences, including the World Economic Forum, Harvard Business School, State of the World Forum, the Corporate Governance Seminar in Singapore, The Asia Society, the Global Human Resource Institute, the Mexico Business Summit on Corporate Governance, the 17th Annual California Governor's Conference for Women and the Global Summit of Women and Korea Information Technology Network Conference (KINCON).
Kyung has been featured on CNBC in "Managing Asia," "Working Women in Asia" and "SmartMoney Asia," as well as in newspaper and magazine interviews in the Sunday Times, The Business Times in Singapore, Han Kook Il-Bo, Business Weekly in Korea, South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal.
E-mail: kyung@talentage.com
Rebecca Chou
Partner
Rebecca is responsible for the Talent Age leadership development practice area. Rebecca is also President of Chou & Schmidt, Inc., a San Francisco-based consulting organization that focuses on helping startups and multinational firms increase their business capabilities through building better people systems, coaching, training and development programs with special emphasis on North American and Asian companies.
Rebecca brings over 25 years of combined consulting and Fortune 500 executive experience in human resources and professional development to the team. In her consulting capacity, she has provided an array of human resource services, coached executives, and helped train managers of multinational firms and high technology startups. Training topics included leadership, front line management, performance management, coaching and feedback, building high performance teams, managing across cultures, and personal speaking styles. A partial client list includes Medtronic, Honeywell, Cray Computers, HP, Sun Microsystems, Siemens, Lacoste, PG&E, NSP, IDS, Applied Materials, LSI Logic, Channel A, and ComputerLand of Silicon Valley. She has trained executives across the United States and in Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain.
Rebecca’s Fortune 500 experience includes Vice President of Human Resources at SYNNEX Corporation (one of top 10 Silicon Valley corporations), and executive positions at Northwest Airlines (Delta), Pillsbury (General Mills), and global management at Amdahl (Fujitsu) Corporation.
To help companies in China and Chinese speaking clients in the US, Rebecca has designed and conducted customized training workshops in Mandarin Chinese. The topics included leadership, management, career development for Asian professionals, sales and customer service.
Rebecca earned a B.A. degree in English Literature from the University of Tamkang, Taiwan, and a M.A. degree in Counseling, with clinical emphasis, from the University of New Mexico. She is a graduate of a year long Intergovernmental Leadership Program and an Executive Development Program in Customer Service Excellence, Kellogg Graduate School of Business. She is a certified trainer of Achieve Global and Inscape Publishing. Rebecca serves on the Board of Directors of the Asia America MultiTechnology Association. Rebecca is past President of the Organization of Chinese Americans, the Industry Liaison Group of Northern California.
E-mail: rebecca@talentage.com
Wayne B. Snyder
Partner
Wayne is responsible for the Talent Age interim financial management practice area. Prior to joining Talent Age, Wayne was an independent financial consultant working with early-stage, venture-backed companies in a wide variety of industries including enterprise application software, network storage devises, optical components, software and hardware networking solutions. As interim Chief Financial Officer, Wayne established the processes and infrastructure for accounting and financial control, financial reporting, budgeting, and longer-term financial planning. In addition, he assisted with business plan preparation and fund raising.
Prior to 2000, Wayne was Chief Financial officer for public and private companies including Zip2 Corp. (online, localized portal-building technology, sold to Altavista, Compaq), MoSys, Inc. (semiconductor), Siebel Systems, Inc. (enterprise software, sold to Oracle), Anthem Electronics, Inc. (electronic component distribution, sold to Arrow Electronics), and W.G. Holt, Inc. (semiconductor). He began his career in the oil and gas industry with Chevron.
Wayne earned a B.A. degree in economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an M.B.A. degree in finance from Indiana University, Bloomington.
E-mail: wayne@talentage.com
Maggie Yen Smith
Principal
Maggie Yen Smith is responsible for conducting CEO, Vice-President and Director search assignments. Maggie brings 16 years of executive search experience, with a concentration in the technology industry. Her clients have included software, telecommunications, semiconductor, consumer electronics, entertainment, and digital media companies, ranging in size from global multinational corporations to venture-backed start-ups.
Maggie has a proven track-record in conducting assignments for CEOs, Presidents, and functional executives in Engineering, R&D, Product Development, Finance, Human Resources, Sales, Marketing, and Professional Services. Her clients have included Applied Materials, Asknet, AT&T, Baxter, BET.com, Boeing, Brocade, CompuServe Interactive, Cymer, Digital River, Disney Interactive, HP/EDS, eHelp, GeoCities, Hewitt Associates, Lutron Electronics, Mio/MiTAC, MSC.Software, Motorola, Netus, Niku, Nitto Denko America, National Semiconductor, Novellus Systems, Navigon, Qualcomm, Science Applications International Corp, Samsung Electronics, Satyam Computer Services, STATS ChipPAC, Telamon, TSMC, WebMD, Western Digital, Western Union, and XO Communications.
Prior to joining Talent Age, Maggie worked at Heidrick & Struggles, A.T. Kearney, and Ray & Bernston. Before entering the search profession, she worked at the First National Bank of Boston.
Maggie earned a bachelors degree and a M.B.A. degree in Finance from the University of Central Oklahoma. Maggie is fluent in Mandarin and English.
E-mail: maggie@talentage.com
