Biography

KaYing Yang, Nonprofit Management Consultant and President of RedGreen Rivers, LLC

For more than two decades, KaYing has been a social justice advocate who has built and led community organizing, public policy engagement, and development efforts locally, nationally, and globally. In the mid 1990’s, she began her career as a community organizer and executive manager providing social services and advocacy for the protection of refugees and immigrants in Minnesota at the Women’s Association of Hmong and Lao. She then went on to defend and promote immigrant and human rights by serving in a number of organizations including the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the Coalition of Asian American Leaders (CAAL) in Minnesota. All of her work comes from a deep experience having come to the United States as a Hmong refugee at the age of seven in 1976 where she experienced firsthand the struggles faced by communities experiencing socio-economic disparities, including generational trauma and poverty. She is president of RedGreen Rivers, LLC, a social enterprise, a board member of Women Winning and a 2019 recipient of the Bush Foundation Fellowship. In 2022, KaYing was appointed to President Biden’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.

Articles, Publications, and Appearances

In the News

Publications

Selected Interviews and Speaking Engagements

  • St. Cloud State University, Keynote Speaker: Power in Diversity Leadership Conference, January 27-29, 2022
  • Amherst Wilder Foundation. Talking through the Numbers Podcast May 19, 2019 with Nicole MartinRogers on Data Disaggregation: Breaking Down Data to Explore Community Assets and Strengths
  • Minnesota Humanities: Hmong Educational Forum: From Mountains to Lakes – May 15, 2021, The Importance of Student Data Disaggregation

Awards