Key
01 / WORLD
I grew up in Chongqing, studied in Shanghai, worked in Shanghai and Beijing, and went on to live in Australia and the UK. Each move changed how I saw the world.
2011–2015
Moving to Shanghai for university was the first time I’d lived away from home. I arrived on my own, in a city I didn’t know. Things I’d only read about or seen on TV slowly became part of everyday life.
2015–2018
After university, I took a job in financial consulting at an international firm. It gave me a solid grounding in finance and a first-hand look at how companies are run. Working with clients across industries showed me that different businesses can organise themselves very differently.
2018–2020
I lived and worked in Australia for two years. I made friends from around the world and got to know different languages, cultures and ways of life. The experience made me more open to things I hadn’t considered before. Sometimes all it takes to see a possibility is to give something unfamiliar a try.
While I was there, I lived through a terrorist attack. I’d never felt so clearly how quickly a life could end. It made me think harder about how I want to spend my time: doing work that matters to me and helping where I can.
2020–2021
After Australia, I went to the UK for my master’s. I’d grown up listening to Britpop, and I wanted to see for myself what it was like to live there.
I went back to university in the middle of the pandemic. Even then, I got to know classmates who had ideas of their own and were working out what they wanted to do next.
Studying again changed what I thought I could do. Technology was making it possible for one person to build things that would once have been out of reach. I realised I didn’t have to decide in advance what I was capable of.