Susan played a central role in founding kyu in 2014, helping establish it within Hakuhodo DY Holdings as a new kind of strategic unit — bringing together best-in-class creative companies to transform businesses, brands, and cultures, and to drive growth and new value creation. Today, she continues to guide the collective’s growth and influence, ensuring its member companies thrive and collaborate in transformative ways.
Alongside her work with kyu, Susan serves as Executive Chair of SYPartners, the firm she built and led for more than three decades, making it one of the founding companies in the kyu Collective. SYPartners is known for partnering with Fortune 100 CEOs and their teams to navigate moments of critical transformation — helping them envision bold futures and design the strategies, cultures, and leadership practices to realize them. Her clients have included AARP, Blackstone, Coach, eBay, Facebook, GE, IBM, JPMorgan Chase, Kohl’s, Oprah Winfrey Network, Planned Parenthood, Pfizer, Starbucks, Target, Viacom, and WW (formerly Weight Watchers), among many others.
Earlier in her career, Susan was General Manager of Studio Archetype, one of the first premier web design firms in the U.S. She also founded her own marketing and product strategy consultancy and spent seven years at Apple as Group Manager of Worldwide Product Marketing.
Susan has served on the boards of Paramount Global and WheelsUp, and currently serves on the boards of Newlab, Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT), and various companies within the kyu Collective.
Susan Schuman helps shape a collective of the world’s most entrepreneurial and generative creative firms.