Hongyan (Claire) YANG

Co-founder & Director, Business and Culture Sectors

From Physics to Global Business

Hongyan Yang — known in international contexts as Claire — brings a rare combination of scientific rigour and international business acumen to LianGroup. Her career spans two continents, two entirely different disciplines, and over two decades of high-level professional experience.

A Scientific Foundation

Claire holds a PhD in experimental physics, earned through more than a decade of academic research conducted across Europe. Experimental physics is an exacting discipline: it demands the ability to design and execute complex methodologies, identify what matters amid noise, and communicate findings to both specialist and non-specialist audiences. These habits of mind — precision, structured thinking, the insistence on evidence — have proven directly transferable to the challenges of international business.

Her research career gave her not only technical depth but also extended experience living and working across different European countries and cultures, building the cross-cultural fluency that would later become central to her professional identity.

International Business: Trading and Technology

After returning to China, Claire transitioned into the private sector, taking on senior roles in international trading and information technology. Over more than nine years she managed international business operations — overseeing product development and manufacture/production, supply chains, human resources, training system, negotiating with counterparts across multiple countries, and building the operational systems that allowed businesses to function efficiently across cultural and regulatory boundaries.

This experience gave her an unusually complete picture of what international business with China actually requires: not only language ability and cultural awareness, but the operational infrastructure, the patience for relationship-building, and the willingness to understand how things work from the other side's perspective.

Building LianGroup

As Co-founder and COO, Claire is responsible for LianGroup's day-to-day operations, client communications and international outreach. She is the point of contact for LianGroup's international clients — ensuring that the service they receive is not only substantively excellent but also culturally attuned to their expectations and working styles.

Her scientific background informs the way LianGroup approaches every client engagement: with clear problem definition, structured methodology, transparent communication, and honest assessment of outcomes. In a field where vagueness and over-promise are common, Claire's instinct for precision and accountability is one of LianGroup's defining qualities.