Savanrith “Savan” Kong
Savanrith “Savan” Kong is a product, UX, and CX executive with 20+ years scaling customer-facing platforms across government and the private sector. He served as the inaugural Customer Experience Officer for the U.S. Department of Defense, work that earned him the 2024 DefenseScoop Industry Leadership Award, and was previously General Manager at Rebellion Defense and a Digital Service Expert at the Defense Digital Service. In the private sector, he was a founding employee at Redfin, co-inventing its map-based search technology, and later led design for Kindle at Amazon. After being laid off, he built a portfolio of ventures — Your Roster, War Room, Cambo, and Light-Lux — each solving a problem he lived firsthand. He is the author of Laid Off and Lost: How to Survive a Job Loss, Rediscover Your Identity, and Rebuild Yourself After Being Let Go, with an upcoming memoir, Halfway Light, tracing his path from a refugee camp in Thailand to the executive suite. He also hosts the podcast Life Between Titles, a show exploring identity, purpose, and the uncertain space between titles and jobs, and currently advises Deep Water Point & Associates and Deep Fathom.
