Soo J. Hong spent three decades working with leaders, teammates, and companies navigating complexity, growth, and change. Her business career spanned five continents and a wide range of organizations, from management consulting to early-stage startups to global private-equity firms and Fortune 500 companies.

She was part of executive teams whose combined valuations exceeded $70 billion, where she partnered with founders, executives, investors and boards during moments of high-stakes transformation. As the first Head of HR for multiple global companies including WeWork and Tinder, she led people teams supporting 300 to 40,000 employees.

Earlier in her career, Soo placed over 200 CEOs, CFOs, and Chief Marketing Officers, assessing and coaching thousands of candidates at Spencer Stuart, one of the the world’s leading executive search firms. She also served on the board of Adverum Biotechnologies, a Nasdaq-listed life sciences company developing treatments for ocular disease. Adverum was acquired by Eli Lilly in 2025.

Across these roles, she built teams, scaled cultures, and developed bespoke leadership programs. Named National Diversity Council's Most Powerful and Influential Woman of the Year and to the Tech HR100, Soo is a sought-after speaker on high performance cultures. Her work and programming have supported hundreds of leaders' promotions and advancement.

She graduated with a BA cum laude in American Studies from Wellesley College, where she took a variety of interdisciplinary courses such as “1968: Terrible Year” and literature courses primarily in contemporary American literature focusing on Asian American writers, and medieval literature with a focus on Chaucer and the Gawain-poet. Soo also holds an MBA with a concentration in marketing from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where she had the pleasure (and toil) of studying with two Nobel laureate economists. She is a recipient of the Booth School of Business Dean’s Award of Distinction.

Additionally, Soo has served on a variety of philanthropic boards and currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences.

In December 2025, Soo took a break from full time corporate work to focus on writing and select executive coaching engagements through her company Laurel Pass.