Lilian Yang, M.B.A., Senior Branch Manager in the Neuro-Oncology Branch at the Center for Cancer Research.
Lilian Yang, M.B.A., is the Senior Branch Manager in the Neuro-Oncology Branch (NOB) at the Center for Cancer Research. She is originally from Hawaii and identifies as Chinese American. In this Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Q&A, she talks to us about the many places she has lived, some valuable business school advice, and the need for Asian representation in leadership roles.
Could you give us a run-down of how you came to work at the NCI?
I grew up in Hawaii and did my undergraduate studies in San Diego at UCSD. I have two undergraduate degrees, one in biochemistry and another in economics. I also have an MBA. Having a science background was important to me, but I also enjoyed studying statistics, supply and demand, and organizational management.
After I graduated, I went overseas to Hong Kong. It was just a short stint, but it gave me the experience of living overseas. I was a product manager in a toy manufacturing company. Eventually, I returned to the U.S. where I worked as a development manager with the YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association), working in an environment with a small budget, and having to wear many hats. I then attended business school in Michigan and worked with the Fortune 500 company Kellogg's in marketing before I returned back to the D.C. area and started at NCI.
While I don't feel my career has been the typical career path, I've gained a lot of skills and experience in management that I've been able to tie together and bring to this role at NCI. After many years in different positions, I was quite pleased and happy to find a management role within a science organization.
It sounds like you’ve experienced a lot since leaving Hawaii. Where did you gain this mindset of “getting out of your comfort zone”?
Yes, going from Hawaii to San Diego was so new to me: I was setting my dorm room thermostat to 80 degrees and taking pictures of fog! When we were in Michigan, my husband thought it was so funny to see me getting up at 6:00 a.m., wearing gaiters and snow-blowing my driveway. It was a far cry from the Hawaii environment.
Aside from the weather, growing up in Hawaii can sometimes have that insular small-town feel. However, it is common for folks from Hawaii to consider going away for college because they know they usually need to leave to get the experiences they want.
I also think it also has to do with my parents. My mom and my dad are both originally from China. And then from China, my mom and her family moved to Brazil, where she had to learn a whole new language. And then eventually she made her way to the US. Knowing how my parents had left their home countries and completely created a new life for themselves, it wasn't so foreign of a concept for me.
Do you have any advice that you could share with us that you've received that has made a positive difference in your career?
One piece of advice would be to make sure you make an effort to get to know everyone. It can be easy to just interact with your groups and your colleagues in your area. But if you get to know the folks in all of the areas outside of your immediate group, I think you learn a lot. Not just about yourself, but about what's going on with the whole branch.
One other big insight that I learned in business school was the importance of “managing up.” That's the idea of being the most effective employee, creating value for your company. Another way of looking at it is how can you make your supervisor's job as easy as possible. One example I can remember is back when the NOB branch was just starting to grow. There were a lot of interviews, and it was just me in the administrator role at the time. As part of the interview process, I decided to walk the candidates around campus to their meetings. It wasn't really necessary, but it was something that I felt would benefit the branch, so the candidates wouldn’t get lost on the NIH campus and consider that an issue. Something small like that helps with managing not only your own job but also the jobs of other people.
Can you speak about the value of having mentors and colleagues who can help you find your career path?
I think that’s very important. When I was first starting out, I was thinking, “I have this science degree, and I’m working at a nonprofit, and they don’t have anything to do with each other.” A friend of mine pointed out the fact that I've had a lot of management experience. I also had a colleague mention how he thought one of my strengths was being able to relate to other people and that people felt very comfortable approaching me. I think both strengths have brought a lot to my current position because I deal with the fellows, staff and PIs. Many of them feel that they can easily come to me with any questions or issues. They might want to discuss their thoughts with me first before going to the “big boss.”
Sometimes it's hard to see things about yourself. You might be more critical of yourself. It's important to be able to discuss your career development with your colleagues because you can get feedback on what others may think you excel at.
Asian Americans and Asians are sort of well‑represented in science, but not necessarily at leadership levels.* I was wondering if you have any thoughts about that.
Part of it is the cultural mindset. Sometimes we Asians have been brought up to think that we have to go into science. We are taught to keep our head to the ground, our nose in our book, and to be a steady force. And we may not necessarily strive to look beyond that.
What advice would you give to the next generation of Asian American students who might be unsure of their next step in their career?
I think the advice that I would give is very applicable to many people, not just Asian Americans or folks of color. It’s important to stay in a position as long as you can to gain some valuable lessons. Many young people jump from position to position, and you do get to experience many things this way. But there is a trade-off: you don't really stay long enough to be able to gain new skills or develop professional and personal connections.
You might go through many different roles throughout your career path: it's important to take the skills and experiences that you've gained with each steppingstone and add them to your toolkit. And the job is not always going to be fine and dandy all the time. But working through some of them, that's how you learn from them. I think that's a big, big part of developing your personal career and finding the best place for you to be.
*For further reading on this subject, see this Today article.