Deborah Kan is a new media entrepreneur, media speaker and award-winning news anchor and journalist.
Previously Executive Producer at the Wall Street Journal, Kan launched the Journal’s video operation in Asia and grew it into a substantial operation, spanning a geographical reach from Japan to Australia. During this time, she created and produced global consumer technology show ‘Digits’ and spearheaded the production of several documentaries and multi-media projects in Asia. The documentary ‘City of Imagination: Kowloon Walled City’ under her leadership, won numerous awards including a Script Howard Prize and the Society of News Design’s ‘Best Digital Design’ award. The multi-media immersive “What Is Alibaba?” also won a Society of Publishers Award.
Kan has interviewed many world leaders and CEOs during her tenure as a journalist. Twitter’s former CEO Dick Costolo, Uber founder Travis Kalanick and Airbnb’s co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk are among technology leaders she obtained exclusive interviews with. When she interviewed Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt in 2014, Kan broke the story of Google’s criticism of the National Security Agency.
Prior to joining the Journal in 2011, Kan was a news anchor with Reuters Insider, Thomson Reuters proprietary news channel, where she reported extensively on China’s 2009 massive economic stimulus package.
Her broadcast experience also includes roles as anchor of “Star News Asia”, the award-winning newscast on Star World, as well as presenter of “Talk with Deborah Kan”. Throughout her career, Kan has conducted exclusive interviews with political leaders, including U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Philippine President Joseph Estrada.
Kan was also one of few international journalists to have interviewed Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, and was the only television journalist from Asia to accompany the New York Phiharmonic on their historic 2008 performance in Pyongyang, North Korea.
She began her broadcast journalism career in San Francisco with KPIX-TV, a CBS affiliate, before relocating to Hong Kong as host of TVB’s “News at Seven Thirty”.
Kan obtained a BA from the University of California. She attended the Mass Media Institute at Stanford University, where she studied broadcast journalism. In 2010, she attended the YGL program at Harvard University.
Kan is a member of the 2008 class of the Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum. She is currently launching a multi-media content site, which focuses on health and technology.
