Corporate success through calculated risk

Charlie Yao gave up a cushy job at Shell to be CEO at startup Yuhuang Chemical Inc

Charlie Yao, CEO at the billion-dollar company Yuhuang Chemical Inc, once thought he'd follow in his father's footsteps through life.

"My father was a chemistry professor at Wuhan University, where I got my degree in chemistry. I came to study at the University of Houston (UH) in 1983 and worked as an assistant professor for three years after getting my PhD. I thought UH would be my home and destiny," said Yao.

By chance through a friend, Yao learned of a research position at Shell Oil's R&D center with more than 2,000 researchers and applied for it. "By then I had already published 20 research papers at UH, and Shell hired me," Yao said.

Yao worked in research and development at Shell for five years, producing 20 papers and five patents. "Then I realized that I could see how my life would be for the next 30 years - the same. I wanted a change," Yao said.

Shell gives opportunities to those who want to advance themselves, and Yao was told that to change his current position, he needed practical experience.

"I looked around within Shell and found a chemistry technologist position at one of its chemical plants in a small town Gersmar, Louisiana. I sold my house in Houston and moved my family there in 1995," Yao said.

"I remember during that time I did a seminar on career path and outlined my plan at Houston's Chinese Association of Professionals in Science and Technology (CAPST). More than a decade later at another CAPST seminar, someone said to me: Your career turned out exactly as you said at that seminar years ago," recalled Yao, who is also a founding member and past president of the association.

It was a bold move for Yao. He was warned by some colleagues that it could be a one-way ticket - he could be stuck there for the rest of his career.

"I was probably the first Chinese technical professional doing so at that time within Shell and the oil industry. I wore blue every day and worked with blue collars. I had to give myself the current English name because almost all of the plant workers were white and could not pronounce my Chinese name. My two kids were the only Chinese students at the local school," Yao said.

Yao considered the experience invaluable for his career. "I gained complete knowledge of the manufacturing process, operation and management. Such knowledge became very useful later in my career."

Three years later, Yao was called back to Shell's corporate headquarters in Houston and was promoted to the position of quality assurance manager.

To Yao, however, it was still a technical position, and he wanted to get into commercial and business operations.

"By then I had worked at Shell for 10 years without any commercial experience. Luckily, I had a mentor of some sort within Shell and was given guidance as to what it would take to make a breakthrough," he said.

Yao managed to win support from Shell; he enrolled in UH's executive MBA program, with the costly tuition paid by Shell.

"After that, my career took off," Yao said.