Motivation, passion and a bit of timing factored into Kathy Yu’s career choices spanning over two decades at Intel, Samsung, Applied Materials, Transmeta and Microsoft during the beginning of the technology revolution in Silicon Valley. None of this would have happened without the mentoring Kathy received at RIT from Dr. Diane Hope, who rescued her when she was a floundering student from a Korean immigrant family with a Hawaiian Island upbringing. 
 
Shortly after graduating from RIT, Kathy launched her business career in the emerging technology sector at Intel’s manufacturing division, optimizing processes with a focus on strategy and partnerships. The capstone of Kathy’s career at Intel was receiving the prestigious Divisional Award for excellence. Following Intel, she took a position with Samsung Semiconductors to manage the memory chip product line for North America. At Samsung, she was awarded the Product Marketing Engineer Award despite lacking an engineering degree. Kathy then held leadership positions at: Applied Materials, managing their semiconductor equipment product line in Europe; Transmeta, managing the entire product portfolio while fending off major microprocessor competitors; and Microsoft, seeding semiconductor companies to make chips capable of running Microsoft’s Windows Media code. Kathy also developed strategic alliances and managed mergers and acquisitions to enable Microsoft’s mobile ecosystem, which was the leader in mobile at that time. 
 
Named one of San Francisco’s “Coolest Power Moms'' in 2012, Kathy has served on the boards of Golden Gate Mothers Group, The Exploratorium Catalyst and the Cow Hollow School. She is also an active contributor to the Boys and Girls Club of SF, Homeless Prenatal Program, the Hamlin School, the Wender Weiss Foundation for Children, the Women’s Foundation of California and the Conquer Cancer Foundation. 
 
Kathy continues to leverage her technology and business background as she angel invests to support and encourage the next generation of entrepreneurs, just as her RIT mentor Dr. Diane Hope had done for her.