SHANNON HSU

Shannon is currently a product manager at Lyft and an alumna of Harvard Business School, McKinsey, and Williams College. During her first YAPAL meeting, she fell in love with the caring, psychologically safe, intellectually stimulating and open-minded community. YAPAL is a place where she can bring her whole self - her moderately libertarian views, Christian faith, inner tech nerd and K-drama fangirl.  As the Director of Membership, Shannon is committed to building the YAPAL family, facilitating meaningful connections, and helping members succeed across all domains of life. 

Shannon is the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants and grew up in Arcadia, CA. As a child, her favorite hobby was building websites and online communities - her proudest childhood memory is leading a band of 500 kids across the nation to stay up until midnight for the grand opening of one of these websites. In high school, she was the founder of a music education & service nonprofit, a student representative to the school board, a commissioner for the City of Pasadena and an avid classical pianist: she performed in Carnegie Hall and was a prizewinner in several international and state-wide competitions. 

At Williams, Shannon majored in math and was an alto, arranger and beatboxer in an Asian a-cappella group and the President of the Williams Business Association, through which she also directly mentored 50+ students. She served in the Christian Fellowship, residential leadership, and in the College Council (student government). Shannon also interned at Barclays Capital as an investment banking analyst in Hong Kong and founded an Asian entertainment ticketing startup that scored exclusive distribution deals worth $16M for Mongolia’s top entertainers - the startup was recognized as the Grand Prize winner at the Williams Entrepreneurship Competition and a finalist in the Draper Entrepreneurship Competition. 

As an atheist who grew up wary of evangelical Christians, Shannon never thought she’d become one herself. But in the summer before her sophomore year of college, she encountered Jesus. Upon calling the name of Jesus for the first time in a dark room, she physically saw a blinding flash of white light fill her entire field of vision and felt a peaceful presence descend upon her. Reading books like Tim Keller’s “The Reason for God” also upended her prior notions that Christianity was incompatible with reason, science and social justice. 

After college, Shannon worked as a product manager at realtor.com, where she launched and grew new products from zero to one million monthly users. After realtor.com, Shannon went to Harvard Business School, where she interned as an Associate at McKinsey’s San Francisco office and served on the leadership team for the Greater China Club, Design & Coding Club, and the Christian Fellowship. 

Shannon’s interests in politics are rooted in freedom (of religion, speech, and markets) and the desire to help others through ways beyond government compulsion. She hopes for a less divided world where people actively listen to different viewpoints, think critically for themselves, forgive each other, fight against oppression, and compassionately love their neighbors.

Shannon’s always cooking up new startup and product ideas and is passionate about helping others reach their dreams, mental health, ADHD advocacy, education, and her Christian faith. She’s fluent in Mandarin and proficient in Japanese. Her hobbies include East Asian pop culture (K-dramas, Anime, K-pop, etc.), ice skating, badminton and piano. She’s also a proud ENFP/4w3 and godmother to Boba, her sister’s pet lop rabbit. Reach out anytime to talk.