Hawaii-born and raised, Randy Wong is a distinctive voice within the arts administration and musical communities, and one of few Asian American executive directors out of hundreds of orchestras nationwide. As President & CEO of Hawaii Youth Symphony, Randy has advanced its vision to Make Music A Right, forging partnerships with the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra, Boys & Girls Clubs, and National Orchestral Institute+Festival. Randy has served as Program Director for the Music-in-Education National Consortium and the faculty of New England Conservatory.

Randy holds an Ed. M from the Harvard Graduate School of Education (Arts in Education) and a B.M. (Performance) from New England Conservatory. A bassist in the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra and an arranger, Randy has recorded/produced albums in jazz, popular, Hawaiian, and Exotica genres and has been profiled on NPR.

He was a member of the League’s Emerging Leaders Program 2017, Stanford Graduate School of Business’ Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders, American Express/Center for Creative Leadership’s Leadership Academy, and Associate Editor of the Journal for Music-in-Education.

Randy was honored by the Hawai‘i Community Foundation in 2018 with its Ho‘okele Award for Excellence in Nonprofit Leadership, joining a small cohort of other executive director awardees since the award’s creation in 2002. He also received an Award of Excellence for Executive Non-Profit Leadership from Business Leadership Hawaii/Pacific Business News in 2021. Through his leadership, Hawaii Youth Symphony has won awards for nonprofit marketing, communications, public relations campaigns, and more. 

In his free time, Randy volunteers for the League of American Orchestras’ Youth Orchestra Division as its Vice Chair, Hawaii Public Radio as co-chair of its Generation Listen initiative, and as a mentor for students from the Center for Tomorrow’s Leaders (Hawaii), Harvard University, and New England Conservatory.