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Chia-Yi Chia-Yi Tung is the founder of Orchimedia and Smile with Chia. Bicultural communicator, she coaches business leaders to live their full potential and advises companies like Airport of Montreal, Beijing Tourism, Bombardier, Camso, Celine Dion, Cirque du Soleil, National Bank of Canada and Telefilm Canada to grow their international recognition. Les Affaires business journal identifies her one of the top 25 future creators, ELLE Quebec entitles her among the women of the year and YCPA names her the entrepreneur of the year. Born in Taipei, resided in Seattle and lives in Montreal, Chia-Yi speaks fluently Mandarin, English and French.
During the interview, Chia-Yi identifies herself as a happiness entrepreneur. She is such an easy-going lady who always keeps smiling.
"smiling, creative and proactive" are the three adjectives that she uses to describe herself.
Chia-Yi started Orchimedia at 2004. After 15 years, Chia-Yi says: "We are still loving doing that." When asked about what triggered her to start Orchimedia, Chia-Yi shared her experience after graduation: "I went to Shanghai and work with a Chinese builder. He wanted to build a first, one of a kind real estate development project which is 100% Canadian housing. From that experience, I realized that Canadian products can be wanted by Chinese. However, I also experienced that they had so much difficulties to work together because they don’t have the same mindset. That’s why I started Orchimedia."
Chia-Yi has helped a lot of clients localize their brands in Asia. "The project that I really really enjoyed working is for the Thinkwell Group. Thinkwell Group is an international consulting firm specialized in architecture planning and design. Orchimedia created the Chinese branding of Thinkwell Group. Chia-Yi says: "Their English name is Think Well and Si Ke Wei Lai actually sounds very similar to their English original name." More magically, this Chinese name keeps the same images. In Chinese, Si Ke Wei Lai means a thinker and a creator of the future. And that’s exactly what Thinkwell Group promises.
The advice that Chia-Yi gives Canadian startups that want to enter Asian market is to prepare yourselves before going to China.
"Do your Chinese website, do your Chinese digital strategies, so in that case, you can start to have your online visibility. Maybe even before you go to China, China will come to you" says Chia-Yi.
At the end of the interview, Chia-yi shared what she would say to the 20-year-old herself. She said that she would start the coaching sessions earlier. Chia-Yi said: "Because as any entrepreneurs, you will have to make a lot of tough decisions. If you have a very good coach, it is a tool to help you be strong-minded and go forward faster!"