Christopher Yang '20 C-Suite Advisor Since 2020

Christopher Yang’s experience in software engineering and project management spans more than 17 years. Currently, he serves as vice president of engineering at Away, a direct-to-consumer lifestyle brand with a mission to create equitable access to the transformative benefits of travel through its product and content. As a member of Away’s leadership team, Chris is responsible for all engineering functions, including application, QA, data, DevOps, and site reliability engineering. Before joining Away, Chris was the vice president of engineering at Onriva, an AI-enabled travel marketplace, and Corporate Travel Management (ASX: CTD), an ASX Top 200 global company. He also held various leadership and management roles at DIRECTV and Ticketmaster. In addition to his career, Chris is an executive committee member at the Tech Coast Angels (TCA), the United States’ leading and most active angel investing network. As the co-chair of the events committee, he consistently manages TCA’s relationships with universities, accelerators, and VCs and is responsible for planning and organizing events in Los Angeles to increase TCA’s exposure to potential members and start-ups. Chris is also a part-time instructor in the Department of Engineering and Technology at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Here, he develops and delivers post-baccalaureate curricula, spearheading UCLA Extension’s first agile project-management certificate. Finally, Chris is a member of the Forbes Technology Council, where he frequently contributes to Forbes.com on topics related to technology, business strategy, project management, and entrepreneurship. Chris has been involved in almost every aspect of technology in his professional life. He is consistently sought as a thought leader in product strategy and development, agile coaching, project and program management, and business-process improvement. He is also an expert presenter, negotiator, and innovator and can forge solid relationships with strategic partners and build consensus across multiple levels. He has established a reputation for meeting organizational objectives and exceeding productivity and revenue goals. He does all of this with a smile on his face and a fire in his heart. Chris holds an MBA, an MS in industrial and systems engineering, and an MS in computer science from USC. He also has a wealth of key certifications, including Project Management Professional (PMP), Program Management Professional (PgMP), PMI Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP), PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), ICAgile Certified Professional (ICP), ICAgile Certified Professional in Agile Coaching (ICP-ACC), Certified Product Manager (CPM), Professional Agile Leadership (PAL I), AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, and ITIL.