This past May, Kaixi (Alex) Yang (International Master of Public Administration, December ’23) attended the College of Liberal and Professional Studies (LPS) graduation ceremony. He donned the traditional cap, gown, and academic hood, plus a plethora of colorful cords and stoles—each ornament denoting a different honor and affiliation. As he crossed the stage, with his mother watching from the audience, Alex’s name was read along with the graduate student awards he was honored with for the year.
“My contribution to receive those awards was my engagement on campus,” he begins. “I’ve done quite a lot of things,” he says, without exaggeration. During his time at Penn, Alex founded an investment club, participated in extracurricular educational, cultural, professional, and social programs, and received three graduate student awards recognizing his leadership and community building across the University.
“I encourage students to engage in their program, their school, and the Penn community,” Alex advises. “When you are engaged, opportunities will follow.”
Alex says passion for community building goes back to his upbringing. “My family has a very altruistic view,” he shares. “My mom always taught me, ‘Do not think of yourself first, think of others.’ I think that really helped me throughout my journey.”
Alex grew up in China, but he had been in the US for almost a decade before coming to Penn for his master’s degree. The time he’s spent immersing himself in a different culture, he says, has given him a nimbleness in adapting to new environments. “I can get assimilated and integrated into campus life really well, so that’s why I personally head out and socialize with other students.”
Before coming to Penn, Alex worked in venture capital and private equity. “My previous work experience gave me great technical training in finance and investment and developed my professionalism. But something I felt I was lacking was seeing things from the eagle’s eye. I wanted to take the opportunity in graduate school to learn public policy and macroeconomics to see trends and opportunities moving forward instead of focusing on the nitty gritty details of investment deals,” he shares. “I came to Penn because believed the Penn I-MPA could equip me with those tools for macro-level analysis,” he says, pointing to the curriculum, supportive community, and vast resources offered. “I was also drawn to the program’s mission to promote human well-being—something I strive to contribute to.”
Once Alex was accepted to the I-MPA program, he began working on his first community-building initiative by founding the Penn Quakers Venture Club (PQVC). “It’s the first venture capital and entrepreneurship-focused club that brings together students from all twelve schools at Penn,” he says. A guiding principle of the club is attracting students from different academic programs to bring their own talents and perspectives to the table. “Every school has its own bubble,” he shares, admitting it can be easy to stick to your own program, cohort of students, and even campus buildings. “We wanted to break the social bubbles and bring Penn students together,” he declares. The current 160+ club members, who undergo a rigorous recruitment process, include graduate and undergraduate students from over half of Penn’s schools. “It’s a very diverse community,” he says.
The club offers a vast selection of educational events—for both members and non-members—including guest speakers and networking sessions. It supports an investment research team that explores opportunities in the healthcare, artificial intelligence, and Web3 sectors, and hosts an annual entrepreneurship summit and a startup competition. So far, the club has organized visits to over 21 venture capital firms and startups in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Philadelphia, and Silicon Valley.
Alex’s development of PQVC earned him the 2024 President and Provost's Honor for Developing New Initiatives in Graduate and Professional Student Life, a graduate leadership award from the Penn Graduate Student Center that recognizes students for enhancing graduate and professional student life at Penn.
His passion for student engagement led Alex to many other service roles, too. For the 2022-23 academic year, he served on the finance committee with LPSGov, the school’s student government, and as a representative for the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly (GAPSA). “I actively promoted the communication and collaboration between LPS and the other student governments and groups across campus,” he says. For these volunteer efforts, he was recognized with the LPSGov Excellence in Leadership Award in the spring of 2023.
His involvement with the Pan-Asian American Community House (PAACH) during his studies, an active cultural resource center on campus, earned him the 2024 PAACH Leadership and Advocacy Award.
Alex’s engagement with Penn's student life, however, goes deeper than awards. One of his most cherished experiences was also one of the first. During his initial semester, Alex applied to the Intercultural Leadership Program, co-sponsored by Penn’s International Student and Scholars Services and Greenfield Intercultural Center. The weekend-long retreat held each fall brings together international and domestic students to foster intercultural community by practicing skills like intercultural communication, collaboration, leadership, and cultural humility. In 2022 Alex attended the program as a student participant. In 2023 he returned as a student leader. “That program was definitely a highlight of my life at Penn,” he shares.
Additional extracurriculars included membership with Wharton Impact Venture Associates (WIVA), a program with Wharton’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Initiative where students from across Penn schools get hands-on experience with social and environmental impact investing (another passion of Alex’s). He also took advantage of professional development events offered through the I-MPA program and at Wharton’s Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center, which included abundant professional programs and a real estate career fair where Alex found his current job.
Today, Alex continues a career as a private equity investor focusing on real estate and community investment, making improvements through acquisition, renovation, and affordable housing. He has also co-founded EcoForge, a climate tech company pioneering the development of sustainable and non-toxic binders and materials. “We do a lot of market and policy research and work that is highly related to the subjects I learned from my I-MPA courses,” he says. “The program really encourages us to think of collaboration across sectors to leverage advantages from the public sector, nonprofits and non-government sectors, and the private sector to solve social challenges,” he adds. “There are a lot of problems that can’t be solved by any single sector. They need collaboration.”
He shares credit for his professional development and success with his home base I-MPA community as well, describing his fellow students as talented, smart, and supportive. “They definitely enriched my life,” he says. “And the I-MPA faculty are not only knowledgeable and wise, but they also really encouraged me in my career endeavors.”
For students new to Penn, Alex reminds them they don’t have to start a club or be an officer to make a difference on campus. “Even a small initiative will light up the world of people around you,” he shares, adding, “Try to give more than you take.”
To find those hidden extracurricular gems on campus, Alex offers simple advice: Read your emails and opt in for listservs. “This is definitely one of my key takeaways—sign up for those emails. Sometimes they can feel like too much, but you never know when there will be a really good program or event you can sign up for that could be life changing.”
