Meet the NewCampus team: Fei Yao, Co-Founder at NewCampus

Meet our team's most enthusiastic tech trend hunter and voice of reason

NewCampus helps you fit learning into your life through daily discussion-led classes, hosted by virtual instructors, delivered in inspiring offline classrooms. Our team is global and remote first. We’re part nerdy, part creative but we all share a passion for changing the way people learn and grow. Keep life in beta.


Meet Fei Yao, Co-Founder of NewCampus, master of all trades, geek, crime junkie and tech trend hunter who has the perfect pop culture reference for every situation in the book. Brimming with stories and ideas and yet grounded in reality, Fei is our voice of reason. When not trying out the latest app on the block, Fei can be found discussing anything from what goes into our swag bag to planning out team OKRs for the next quarter. 

Tell us a little about yourself

I’m an Australian edtech founder that has been building companies around Asia for the past half a decade. I studied engineering, built a career in consulting, but wanted to invest myself into more social causes. I fell into tech entrepreneurship but discovered that I liked building teams and products. I’m scared of most animals

What do you do at NewCampus?

Much of the work I do at NewCampus involves designing and planning. Keeping atop of trends in education and work, figuring out what our future looks like and marrying that to what we’re doing now. 

Ultimately, my work revolves around creating structures, processes and relationships to become a better company. 

What does your typical day at work look like?

Here is a handy article on my schedule from WeWork


What is your current focus at work?

We’re looking ahead to 2020 now and growing with new projects. My current focus is to keep the team aligned, accountable and motivated.

Photography courtesy: Marisse Caine for WeWork


Three words that describe you?

Curious, ambitious, enthusiastic.


Why did you join NewCampus? What excites you about what you do?

While the roots of NewCampus was personal (helping restless millennials in life transitions connect to different ideas and people), the bigger pie was actually helping people feel relevant during times of change. Relevance has been an important theme, be it being relevant socially, culturally or relevant to the workforce. Alienation is one of the biggest modern problems, with mental health issues rising, changing geopolitical movements and uncertainty about AI and job automation. While what we build evolves, I feel humbled to be part of a team passionate about creating spaces to help people make learning, personal growth and human connection a part of their identities.


How do you incorporate lifelong learning into your schedule?

I have the attention span of a peanut, so my day-to-day consumption is bite-sized business, technology and design content: articles, podcasts, or reading the first 2-3 chapters of a book (80/20 rule!). I do try to bury myself into some good fiction once in a while. I think crossing over to another universe with a strong protagonist can shape your perspective, values and sense of identity. Recently though, I’ve been trying to adopt more sustainable lifestyle habits, so I enjoy spending time learning how to cook up better meat-free dishes.


What/who inspires you?

I’m very easily inspired - whether it be friends, historical figures, or just general human achievement. Being impressionable is usually associated as being a fairly negative trait, but it’s quite humbling to stop and smell the roses. People are pretty weird but amazing.


Share a book/podcast/article that inspired you and tell us why it impacted you

Joseph Campbell - The hero with a thousand faces. There has been a lot of comparison between his framework for a hero’s journey and the path of entrepreneurship, but the longer I have been in the people space, I see it can be applied to anyone’s personal journey. What are the challenges you are willing to take on, how you deal with the unfamiliar and temptations? All very applicable to anyone going through personal transition or looking to be a part of the change.


What do you do outside of work for fun?

I like hosting friends: playing games, dinners or drinks with good conversation. By myself, I can happily spiral down a Wikipedia black hole with a glass of wine for hours at an end. I really enjoy yoga when I’m in the zone, but getting to the studio is sometimes a bit of a struggle street.

Photography courtesy: Marisse Caine for WeWork


What’s the best piece of advice you can give to anyone?

Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into years. Your day today isn’t a time filler or dress rehearsal for the next thing. Make it count for you.

Your favourite quote/motto

“It is not the critic who counts; not the person who points out how the strong one stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself/herself/themself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his/her/their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”


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Check out Fei on LinkedIn here or follow her on Instagram

If you are excited about joining the NewCampus team, check out our open roles here or come say hi at hey@newcampus.co ✨

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