Yao is a co-founder of Storyteller Productions, where he handles all the administrative work – the glamorous behind-the-scenes tasks that nobody notices until something goes wrong. He has spent 15 years working across journalism, storytelling, entrepreneurship and social impact. After four years as a journalist at Reuters, where he learned to ask better questions and explain complicated subjects clearly, he decided the cushy job was far too boring and started looking for more interesting projects to take on.
Since then, Yao has started more businesses than he can count on one hand, with varying success. But undeterred by failures, he continues to test unchartered waters consistently, occasionally stumbling into success along the way. He is also a co-founder of We Are Majulah, a ground-up movement that brings Singaporeans together – an idea that wasn’t his, which may explain why it refused to fail. When he isn’t dealing with paperwork or launching his next questionable venture, he can usually be found learning as many useless things as possible, particularly those with no obvious value to either his business or life.