Sandy Hoa Dang Co-founder and Principal, Coinnovate Consulting, Washington, DC

Sandy Dang is co-founder and principal of Coinnovate Consulting in Washington D.C., which provides leadership training programs for corporations, nonprofits, governmental agencies, and academic institutions. Dang has cultivated a team of professionals to build the next generation of leaders. Her passion is to help young people maximize their leadership potential to benefit society.

At ten years old, Dang and her ethnic-Chinese family fled Hanoi, Vietnam, and spent weeks at sea between China and Hong Kong, only to end up in a series of refugee camps. Over three years, she received no formal education. At thirteen, she and her family resettled in the United States in 1981, first in Salt Lake City, Utah, then in Brooklyn, New York. Because of her personal experiences and the hardship that she endured in a new country, Dang has devoted her career to empowering young people. For more than a decade, she served as founder and executive director of Asian American Leadership, Empowerment, and Development, an organization that supports immigrant and refugee families through a broad array of educational and social services.

In 2011, President Barack Obama appointed Dang to serve on the Board of Directors of the Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF), and from 2014-2018 she served as executive director of VEF, a special initiative by the U.S. Congress to strengthen bilateral relations between the United States and Vietnam through educational exchanges related to science, engineering, mathematics, medicine, and technology. During her tenure, Dang established a leadership development program helping hundreds of VEF Fellows.

Dang holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Duke University, a Master of Social Work from Catholic University of America, and a Master in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School. In addition to English, she is fluent in Cantonese and Vietnamese.