# Simon Yoo

**Senior Director, Corporate Strategy and Development** — United States

> Strategy and corporate development executive with nearly two decades of experience in growth strategy, M&A, and product-led expansion across consumer technology, gaming, mobile, AI, and platform businesses. Currently leads corporate strategy and development for Western Digital's core HDD business and emerging technology ventures.

Career Archetype: **Junction Summiteer** (HE-DX) — One of the first Junction Summiteers on Saywise

## Links

- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/simon-yoo-8236814

## Experience

### Senior Director, Corporate Strategy and Development, Western Digital (2026-01 – present)
San Jose, CA · Leads strategy and corporate development for the core HDD business and emerging technology ventures, covering competitive positioning, commercial strategy, and long-term growth priorities. Owns the full transaction lifecycle for acquisitions, joint ventures, divestitures, and strategic investments, and builds partnerships across hyperscalers, cloud providers, OEMs, and infrastructure software companies. Advises the executive team and Board through market analysis and financial modeling.

### Senior Director (Principal), Corporate Strategy and Development, Samsung Electronics (2015-09 – 2025-12)
Seoul, South Korea · Began career in the corporate strategy and development group at Samsung Electronics.

### Business Development & Partnerships, Concur Technologies (2014-01 – 2014-12)
San Francisco, CA · Owned multi-million-dollar partnerships end-to-end, from structuring and negotiation through closing and launch, expanding distribution and driving measurable revenue growth.

### Senior Analyst, Corporate Strategy & Planning, Activision Blizzard (2011-01 – 2013-12)
Santa Monica, CA · Led long-range planning, annual operating planning, and forecasting for a global gaming business. Helped launch the mobile games division, evaluating studios and IP, building user acquisition and retention models, and running M&A target identification and diligence.

### Marketing, Gaming and Interactive Entertainment (2010-01 – 2010-12)
Marketing strategy, branding, social media, PR

### Marketing Analyst, Masher Media (2010-01 – 2010-12)
Los Angeles, CA · Drove marketing, PR, and KPI development, and supported beta launch for a gaming startup, working across product, finance, and business development.

### Financial Management Prorgram, General Electric (2007-07 – 2009-12)
Various U.S. Locations · Selected for GE's rotational finance program, completing rotations across FP&A, controllership, and commercial finance.

## Education

### Master of Business Administration - MBA, University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business (2015-05)

### Bachelor of Arts - BA, University of California, Berkeley (2006-05)
With honors

### International Studies, University of Tsukuba

## Projects

### Samsung TV Plus
Global strategy and investment roadmap · Oversaw the global strategy and investment roadmap for the platform, driving decisions across content, partnerships, and monetization.

### Samsung Foldables Developer Ecosystem
Roadmap decisions driven by consumer research and user testing · Translated consumer research, user testing, and product analytics into roadmap decisions covering UX priorities, monetization, and ecosystem partnerships.

### Samsung Smart Home Regional Partnerships
System integrator and distributor partnerships across APAC and EMEA · Built and scaled regional partnerships with system integrators and distributors, then handed off operational plans to local teams.

## Skills

Operations Management, Strategic Planning, Go-to-Market Strategy, Investments, Strategic Partnerships, Business Development, Business Strategy, Financial Modeling, Leadership, Management, Corporate strategy, Corporate development, M&A, Due diligence, Valuation, Deal structuring, FP&A, Budgeting, Capital allocation, AI strategy, Generative AI, Machine vision, Advanced Excel, SQL, Tableau, AI agents, Automation workflows, Partnerships, Product strategy, Mobile games, Gaming, Korean, Japanese, English

## AI Fluency

- **Perplexity** (https://perplexity.ai)
- **Claude** (https://claude.ai)

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Source: https://saywise.com/simonyoo (last modified 2026-11-09T06:51:08.298Z)