I help leaders and organizations build leadership that is sustainable, grounded, and deeply human, so performance doesn’t come at the cost of wellbeing.
For much of my early career, I was praised for being capable, dependable, and high-achieving. I was the person who could hold complexity, manage competing priorities, and stay composed in difficult rooms.
What few people could see was the cost of that performance.
Like many leaders, especially those who are first-generation, women, queer, and people of color, I learned early how to over-function, read the room constantly, anticipate needs before they were spoken, and carry great responsibility quietly. These skills helped me succeed across public health, nonprofits, philanthropy, and consulting. They also taught my nervous system that leadership meant vigilance, urgency, and self-sacrifice.
My work today grew directly from that lived experience.
I began my career in grassroots organizing, gender-based violence prevention, and public health, working alongside BIPOC communities, survivors, and people in recovery to advance equity and access to care. Over time, I moved into leadership, consulting, and facilitation roles, supporting organizations committed to justice and social impact.
Again and again, I saw the same pattern: brilliant, values-driven people burning out under systems that rewarded overextension, sacrifice, assimilation, and silence.
Through my training in public health, organizational development, trauma-informed practice, and integrative frameworks, I began to see leadership differently. Sustainable change, whether in health or in organizations, requires addressing root causes, not just symptoms. It requires supporting the whole person. It requires shifting both individual patterns and systemic conditions.
This lesson is the foundation of my work today.
Today, I support leaders and organizations who want more than performative change. I’m passionate about helping people who wish to lead, who are both results-oriented and human-centered.
My Story
My Approach
My background in public health trained me to think systemically, ethically, and holistically about social issues and challenges. My work today is a natural extension of that foundation: supporting leaders and organizations to build cultures, practices, and ways of working that are not only effective but also sustainable, human-centered, and life-giving.
The principles guiding my work mirror those found in integrative health, trauma-informed care, and public health practice:
Whole-person approach
Leadership is shaped by cognition, emotion, embodiment, identity, lived experience, and meaning. Ignoring any of these dimensions limits the depth of change that’s possible.
Client-centered partnership
Rather than prescribing catch-all solutions, I collaborate with clients to co-create strategies that honor their context, values, and lived realities. You are not a project to be fixed; you are a partner in the process.
Prevention over crisis response
Instead of waiting until burnout, breakdown, or conflict escalation, we proactively build sustainable capacity, regulation, boundaries, and clarity.
Early awareness and intervention
We pay attention to subtle signals, patterns of exhaustion, avoidance, self-doubt, or over-functioning before they manifest into burnout, allowing for earlier, gentler, and more effective course correction.
Root-cause orientation
Rather than treating leadership challenges as isolated issues (“just communicate better,” “just be more confident”), we explore the deeper drivers beneath the pattern: nervous system responses, identity dynamics, power structures, and internalized expectations.
My Bio
Yoo-Jin Kang (she/hers) is an integrative leadership strategist, organizational consultant, and executive coach who helps leaders and organizations build leadership that is sustainable, grounded, and deeply human.
With over a decade of experience at the intersection of public health, equity, healing-centered practice, and systems change, Yoo-Jin supports executives, founders, People and culture leaders, mission-driven professionals, and individuals navigating complexity, pressure, and transition. Her clients often come to her when surface-level strategies are no longer enough and when they are ready to shift patterns, not just optimize performance.
Yoo-Jin’s work is deeply informed by her training in public health and integrative frameworks, which emphasize whole-person care, root-cause understanding, prevention, and long-term sustainability. Just as integrative medicine treats the whole person rather than isolated symptoms, her approach to leadership focuses on the interconnected nature of strategy, nervous system, identity, power, and purpose. Rather than asking only “How can you perform better?” she asks deeper questions: What is shaping your patterns? What is happening beneath the surface? And what would actually support sustainable leadership over time?
Her approach blends evidence-based leadership development, trauma-informed practice, somatic intelligence, systems thinking, and cultural identity awareness. For clients who are interested, she also incorporates reflective tools, such as archetypal and astrological frameworks.
Yoo-Jin holds a Master of Public Health from UC Berkeley and dual Bachelor’s degrees in Sociolinguistics and Interdisciplinary Studies from UMBC, where she focused on the intersection of culture, language, and violence prevention. She began her career in grassroots organizing, gender-based violence prevention, and public health, partnering closely with BIPOC communities, survivors, and people in recovery to advance equity and access to care. Over the past 12+ years, her leadership and consulting work have spanned philanthropy, nonprofits, higher education, corporate social responsibility, and national institutions.
Through Yoo-Jin Kang Consulting, she partners with leadership teams, national philanthropic organizations, DEI practitioners, and mission-driven institutions to build cultures of care, accountability, and sustainability. Her facilitation and coaching help leaders navigate identity, power, and systemic complexity with greater clarity, regulation, and integrity.
Beyond consulting, Yoo-Jin is also the founder of yoojiflows, a creative events consultancy that brings astrology, movement, and healing justice into community spaces through workshops, classes, and experiential gatherings. She is the creator of the Eldest Daughters Collective, a national peer-support community for eldest and only daughters of immigrant and BIPOC families.
Her contributions to equity, leadership, and community wellbeing have been recognized through numerous honors, including the UC Berkeley Dean’s Health Equity Award, Sisters in Public Health Award, Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics (LEAP) Fellowship, and American University’s Inclusive Excellence Award.
Across all her work, Yoo-Jin is known for creating spaces that are both rigorous and deeply human, where clients feel intellectually challenged, emotionally safe, and supported in reconnecting to their clarity, capacity, and wholeness.
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Yoo-Jin Kang (she/hers) is an integrative leadership strategist, organizational consultant, and executive coach who helps leaders and organizations build sustainable, human-centered leadership. With over a decade of experience spanning public health, equity-centered facilitation, and systems change, her work focuses on addressing root causes rather than surface-level symptoms. supporting clients to lead with clarity, regulation, and alignment rather than burnout and overextension.
She holds a Master of Public Health from UC Berkeley and dual Bachelor’s degrees in sociolinguistics and Interdisciplinary Studies from UMBC. Her approach blends evidence-based leadership development, trauma-informed practice, somatic intelligence, and cultural identity work. For clients who are interested, she also incorporates reflective tools such as archetypal and astrological frameworks.
Yoo-Jin is the founder of Yoo-Jin Kang Consulting, yoojiflows, and the Eldest Daughters Collective. Her work has been recognized through honors including the UC Berkeley Dean’s Health Equity Award, Sisters in Public Health Award, LEAP Fellowship, and American University’s Inclusive Excellence Award.
Leadership & Awards
Founder & Visionary Leadership
Founder & Chief Visioning Officer — Eldest Daughters Collective (2023–present)
Founder & Chair — Transformative Justice Learning Group, Futures Without Violence (2021)
Founder & Chair — Asian Pacific Islander Affinity Group, Futures Without Violence (2021)
Founder & Co-Chair — People of Color Staff & Faculty Affinity Group, American University (2019)
Board & Council Roles
Board Member-at-Large — Yoga Service Collective (2020)
Vice-Chair — American University Staff Council (2019)
Wellness Council Member — American University (2018–2021)
Program Co-Lead — Healing and Wellness Jam, YES! World
Awards & Recognition
Dean’s Health Equity Award — UC Berkeley (2022)
Inclusive Excellence Award — American University (2020)
Inclusive Excellence Mini-Grant Recipient — AU President’s Council on Diversity & Inclusion (2019)
Service to the AU Community Award Nominee — American University (2020)
Leader of the Year Award — Omicron Delta Kappa Honor Society Circle (2015)
Leadership Award — UMBC Honors College (2015)
Public Interest Communications Fellow — The Karel Fellowship (2014)
Leadership Programs & Fellowships
NASA Astrophysics Database of IDEA Practitioners (2022)
LEAP Impact Leadership Academy (2022)
Women Leaders Emerge (2022)
Training & Credentials
Academic Degrees
Master of Public Health — UC Berkeley
Bachelor of Arts in Modern Languages & Linguistics — UMBC
Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies (Psychosocial & Cultural Perspectives on Violence) — UMBC
Fellowships & Cohorts
Global Roundtable Leadership Cohort (2024)
Stingray Artist Residency (2021)
Karel Public Interest Communications Fellow (2015)
YES! World’s Wellness and Healing Justice Jam
Professional & Leadership Training
Managing to Change the World — The Management Center
Managing Projects — The Management Center
Facilitating Cultural Change 5-Day Institute- Intercultural Development Inventory — Beth Zemsky
The Shared Leadership Journey — Global Roundtable Leadership
Racial Justice Leadership Institute — Race Forward
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Workplace Certificate — University of South Florida
Trauma-Informed Coaching Tools
Resetting the Table “Train-the-Trainer” Cohort
Resetting the Table: Speaking Across Conflict Workshops
Trauma-Informed Training — Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault
40-Hour IPV Advocacy Training — Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence
Healthy Masculinity Training Institute — Men Can Stop Rape
Holding a Healing Space: Supporting Sexual Trauma Survivors — The Breathe Network
Mental Health First Aid — Mental Health First Aid Inc.
Motivational Interviewing — Motivational Interviewing Network
Healing Modalities & Embodiment
Alchemical Astrology Certification — Alanna Kaivalya, Ph.D. (75 hours)
Somatic Embodiment Certificate — Linda Thai
Mind-Body Medicine Fundamentals — The Center for Mind-Body Medicine
200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training — The Mindfulness Center
Reiki I Energy Healing — The Mindfulness Center