Simple Steps is celebrating a new milestone this year. It all started with a dream. Five years ago, Doyeon Kim, the founder and executive director at Simple Steps, decided to take the very first step forward to turn her dream into a reality. Five amazing years later, here we are! We served 2,000+ individuals through career development programs and networking events with women of various talents and work experiences from nine countries. You can learn more about our programs and our impact here. 

In celebration of our 5th anniversary, we are delighted to share the stories of the different paths we take towards reaching our goals. Please join us and be a part of our mission to empower immigrant women to pursue their professional aspirations and create safe and diverse workplaces.

Friday, May 13, 2022

Schedule for Friday, May 13

6:15 pm - Opening

6:30 pm - Keynote by Bo Young Lee

7:20 pm - Break

7:30 pm - Partners' Session by Blind & Moloco

8:30 pm - Closing

*The schedule is in Pacific Time

Virtual Event, $10

Keynote: Trusting Yourself to Create Your Own Path

When we step into our career journey, it is important to trust ourselves to do the job, ace that interview, or pursue the goal we set. We invited Bo Young Lee, the Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer at Uber, to share the path she walked to be one of the most influential executives at Uber. Bo leads Uber’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts with Uber’s stakeholders, and in the communities where Uber operates. Bo partners with senior leadership, including its CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, to build a work culture where radically diverse and inclusive teams drive innovation, accelerate growth, and increase connection to customers and earners. This begins with building a work culture and systems where all employees have the opportunity to excel and grow to their highest potential.

**Bo Young Lee**
Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer at Uber Technologies

Prior to joining Uber, Bo was the first Global Diversity and Inclusion Officer for the Risk and Insurance Services businesses for Marsh McLennan, where she oversaw D&I strategy for 40,000 employees across 89 countries. Bo also launched and led Hewitt Associates’ Global Emerging Workforce Solutions consulting practice and held diversity leadership roles at Ernst & Young and National Grid. Bo also served as a Director of Advisory Services at Catalyst, the leading non-profit focused on the advancement of women in business. As a consultant and thought leader, Bo has enabled dozens of clients to achieve their diversity & inclusion goals. Past clients include Marriott International, Northern Trust, John Deere, Allstate, Booz & Co., Discover, Aon, Human Rights Campaign, McKesson, and many others. Bo has an MBA with distinction from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a BBA magna cum laude from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. She is a frequently sought-after speaker and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Tech Crunch, The Huffington Post, MSNBC, and other media outlets and conferences. She lives in New York City with her husband, daughters, Annabelle and Beatrice, and two dogs.

Blind info here

Partners’ Session

Simple Steps partners with our champion partner companies that support our mission. We work together to build a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive work culture. At the Partners’ Session, we invited Kyum Kim, the Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer at Blind and Ikkjin Ahn, the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Moloco, to share their journey as startup leaders. They will discuss the work culture and employee engagement of a growing startup and how the company plays a role in their employee’s growth.

**Kyum Kim**
Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer at Blind

Kyum is the co-founder of Blind. As the chief business officer, he is the architect of the professional social network’s expansion in the U.S. and its reputation as the largest community for career advice and workplace insights. He was one of the first employees of TMON and helped scale it to more than 1,000 employees and one of Korea’s first tech acquisitions in less than a year and a half. Kyum and his colleagues are now known as the “TMON mafia.”

Blind is a trusted community where verified professionals connect to discuss what matters most.

Professionals anonymously communicate in private company channels and openly with users across industries. Blind is a place where 5M+ professionals worldwide share advice, provide honest feedback, improve company culture and discover relevant career information.

**Ikkjin Ahn**
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Moloco

With nearly two decades of software and monetization experience at YouTube and Google, Ikkjin Ahn co-founded Moloco in 2013. During his time with YouTube in the monetization team, Ikkjin developed a video profitability prediction system. While at Google, he was the founding Tech Lead Manager for the Android Data team achieving the Google Citizenship award in 2012.

As CEO, Ikkjin sets the strategy and vision for the company. He is often sought out for his opinions on machine learning, data privacy, performance advertising, and growth marketing. He leads the company’s continual investment in machine learning and R&D and has led the company through significant revenue growth, global office expansions, and staffing increases while earning recognition as a Great Place to Work and as a Deloitte Fast 500 company. Ikkjin is an advocate for all employees by ensuring that Moloco continues to be an inviting employer that welcomes diversity and provides opportunities for employees to learn and advance their careers.

Moloco was founded in 2013 with a vision: empowering mobile businesses to thrive by turning data into ad performance. We’re a tech-driven company with top talent from Google, Amazon, and Twitter, which has enabled us to create an industry-leading programmatic advertising platform powered by the best in machine learning.

Saturday, May 14, 2022

Schedule for Saturday, May 14

in Sunnyvale, CA (maximum capacity: 50)

2:00 pm - Opening

2:10 pm - Partners' Session by The Miilk & BAKG

3:10 pm - Break

3:20 pm - Career Stories by Eunjung Cho, Jenny Park, Miyoung Han, Hyeyoung Seo, and Seonyoung Son

4:20 pm - Networking

*The schedule is in Pacific Time

** Snack and beverages provided

In-person Event, $15

SOLD-OUT

Partners’ Session

Early in the stage, Simple Steps helped The Miilk and the Bay Area K group find talent who can grow with their business.

Confirmed Presenting Partners

Career Stories Speakers

Be inspired by the stories of the five talented women: Eunjung Cho, Jenny Park, Miyoung Han, Hyeyoung Seo, and Seonyoung Son. When they first came to Simple Steps, they were uncertain about their career paths and had many questions about how they could reboot or pivot their careers in the US to move forward. In "The Path of Initiators: Career Stories," these formidable ladies will share why they followed their chosen profession path, discuss the challenges they overcame, and what their future career plans look like. Don't miss this rare in-person opportunity!

Eunjung Cho has years of experience in UX design & user research. Before her family moved to the US, she had worked at large tech companies and a startup in Korea. After a couple of years in a career break to raise her children in the US, she finally restarted her career in 2018. There have been ups and downs in her journey but she is excited about her new role at ChargePoint where she recently joined. Currently, she lives in the bay area, CA, with her husband, two children and a cat. Her hobbies are learning French in Duolingo and listening to podcasts.

Jenny Park has managed projects at the eCommerce team of Samsung and currently works at Meta as the senior project coordinator in Reality Labs. She has been a point of contact for the team and owns documenting dashboards, review decks, and meeting notes. As a project coordinator, Jenny works with cross-functional teams internally and externally. While she does not have a technical background, she finds working with a diverse engineering team inspires her. Prior to working in the US, she managed two small shops and sold the businesses. In her personal time, she enjoys traveling, hanging out with her dog, and doing pilates.

Miyoung is a technical support engineer at Sendbird. She had worked as a software engineer at Korean ATM manufacturer Hyosung for seven years. After her marriage, she moved to the US which led to her career being discontinued. For the next 11 years, she had two boys and focused on settling down in Washington. Miyoung had an opportunity to start over as a part-time software engineer 2 years ago. She eventually made a transition to the new position of a technical support engineer, as a full-time employee at Sendbird. As a mother, she does her best for her children on weekends.

Hyeyoung is a backend engineer at Canoo, building the most innovative EV car. She was a project manager and business consultant in an IT company in Korea before immigrating to the U.S. Joining Simple Steps was a huge milestone in her U.S. life. She started to study Web Development through the partnership program with CodeStates and devoted herself to organizing, running, and learning to code in study groups at Simple Steps. Finally, she landed on an EV company, Canoo as a full-time remote backend engineer. She likes to spread enjoyable study viruses to other immigrant women. She lives in Bay Area and is trying to balance work and life wisely.

Seonyoung is a full-stack engineer at Wildseed Tech. In Korea, she worked as a software engineer for over 10 years in the mobile phone and defense industry. She took a 7-year career break after moving to the U.S. Seonyoung participated in various volunteering and part-time work while resuming job searching and CS studying. She enjoys growing and working with the company by constantly learning from the ever-changing early start-ups. Seonyoung lives in the Bay Area with her family and enjoys gardening.