Appointment of new Executive Director announced
April 06, 2022
It is with great pleasure that we announce the appointment of Soo Jung Hyun as the new Executive Director of the HKILF.
Soo Jung is a long-standing friend and supporter of the Festival, having previously worked for the HKILF and the Young Readers Festival in their earliest years of existence. She went on to have a stellar career in publishing, working at a senior level for Macmillan and most recently Scholastic from their regional hub in Hong Kong, where she was instrumental in the growth of bookclub, digital, and print businesses.
A native Korean speaker, Soo Jung grew up here in Hong Kong, where she spent many happy hours feeding her growing appetite for great books at the City Hall Public Library. She attended King George V School, before leaving to study at Harvard College.
Soo Jung takes over from Catherine Platt, who has confidently shepherded the HKILF through the uncertainty of more than two years of Covid. Catherine’s impressive range of contacts, nose for great stories, and passion for reaching out to new and existing readers has meant the HKILF has grown in reach and ambition at a time when many other arts organisations have been forced to scale down. Under Catherine’s leadership, the HKILF has established of new programmes including the summer events series at the West Kowloon Cultural District and a new collaboration with the Hong Kong Book Fair, all while continuing to deliver the best prize-winning authors from home and abroad. She leaves with the Festival in strong shape, with exciting new partnerships and projects on the horizon that we plan to deliver throughout 2022 and beyond. We thank Catherine for her hard work and dedication through these extraordinary times.
With her deep knowledge of books and her corporate commercial experience, we are confident that Soo Jung will successfully be able to build upon the new opportunities facing the HKILF. She will be joining Ann Chan, Zoe Xu and the rest of the HKILF team, continuing to deliver world class literary events across Hong Kong’s population.
The Board
Hong Kong International Literary Festival
