2012 APA Heritage Ball – Yul Kwon

Yul has enjoyed a diverse and successful career across technology, business, law, public policy, and media. He attended Stanford University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and received a degree in Symbolic Systems. He then attended Yale Law School, serving on the editorial board of the Yale Law Journal and later clerking for Judge Barrington Parker on the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Yul’s early career focused on the intersection of technology, law, and policy. He practiced transactional law at Venture Law Group and communications law at Wiltshire & Grannis. He served as a legislative aide to U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman, for whom he helped draft the Homeland Security Act, authored a landmark bill on nanotechnology, and organized a Congressional caucus on science and technology. Yul then transitioned into the business sector, first working at McKinsey & Co. as a management consultant, before joining Google’s Business Operations and Strategy group.

In 2006, Yul became the first Asian American to win the CBS reality show, Survivor. Throughout the show’s controversial, racially-segregated season, Yul applied his leadership and social skills to lead a multi-racial alliance and break stereotypes about Asian Americans in the media. Following Survivor, he worked as a special correspondent for CNN, co-hosted a show for the Discovery Channel, and became an adjunct instructor for the FBI, for whom he helped teach a course on social dynamics. Yul subsequently became an entrepreneur and small business owner.

In 2009, Yul was appointed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to become Deputy Chief of the FCC’s Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau. As one of the key officials charged with transforming the FCC into a more pro-consumer agency, Yul oversaw a bureau-wide reorganization and developed regulatory initiatives to promote consumer choice and protection. He also spearheaded a series of FCC task forces and working groups on children’s issues, broadband adoption in minority communities, and distracted driving.

In 2011, Yul left the FCC to host a new series for PBS called America Revealed, which will premiere on April 11, 2012. He is also the anchor for LinkTV’s weekly news program, LinkAsia.

Yul is active in a wide range of charities and nonprofits. He is the Vice-Chair of the Council of Korean Americans, and sits on the advisory boards of the Asian American Justice Center and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center. Yul has been profiled in a variety of periodicals, including People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive issue, VIBE Magazine’s annual “Juice” issue of people with power, and Entrepreneur Magazine.