Organization: Asian Counseling & Referral Services

Location: Seattle, WA

Michael Byun

Executive Director

Michael Byun is Executive Director of Asian Counseling and Referral Service (ACRS) and has worked for nearly 25 years on health disparities, social justice, and immigrant and refugee issues, with a focus on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders and other underserved communities.

Before his ACRS appointment in December 2018, Mr. Byun spent 15 years leading Asian Services in Action (ASIA), Inc., the largest health and social services agency in Ohio focused on empowering AANHPIs, immigrants, and refugees. As CEO and Executive Director, he led key initiatives and coalition-based statewide civic engagement campaigns that expanded workforce and job training programs, established annual Ohio AANHPI Legislative Days, and opened the first-ever federally qualified health center in Ohio for AANHPI immigrant and refugee communities.

Mr. Byun has also served on several state and national boards and advisories within the AANHPI community. In 2015, he was appointed by Ohio Governor John Kasich as chair of the Ohio AANHPI Advisory Council, and in 2014 was appointed by President Barack Obama to the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Mr. Byun currently serves on the executive committee for the King County Integrated Care Network and the Sonoma Winegrowers Association advisory board. He recently was voted in as a trustee for the 501c Agencies Trust.

Mr. Byun earned his MPA from the University of Washington and is a 2015 German Marshall Fund Fellow and a 2009-10 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Fellow.