Christopher Yang

Vice President of Engineering | Away

Christopher Yang’s experience in software engineering and project management spans more than a decade. Currently, he serves as vice president of engineering at Onriva, an AI-powered marketplace intended to bring price transparency to travel. In this capacity, Chris leads a large group of engineers, architects, and project managers across the United States, Hungary, and Russia in designing and launching Onrvia’s leading-edge travel platform. Before Onriva, Chris was the vice president of engineering at Corporate Travel Management (ASX: CTD), an ASX Top 200 company. He also held leadership and management roles at DIRECTV, Ticketmaster, and Onestop Internet.

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 new 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.

In every facet of his professional life, Chris has been involved in almost every aspect of technology. He is consistently sought as a thought leader for 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.