Ysanne Yeo
Design Strategist & Facilitator
I bring clarity through design and discourse. I notice the values behind words spoken and unspoken, read system dynamics, and attend to details that reveal the real questions — translating complexity into actionable insights, designing for people and organisational transformation.
With over a decade across public service, academia, and startups, my practice draws on training in industrial design, systems thinking, organisational development, and facilitation. I work at the intersection of strategy and human systems — where rigorous thinking meets the messiness of real people and real decisions.
A system that takes care of its people takes care of itself.
Open to global commission work across design strategy, research, and facilitation.
What I Bring
I work best in complex, ambiguous environments — where the problem isn't yet clear, the stakeholders don't yet agree, and the path forward needs both rigour and imagination to find.
Strategic Direction & Decision GuidanceI help teams and leaders get unstuck — clarifying what the real problem is before anyone starts solving it. I translate ambiguous briefs into actionable directions, and bring structure to messy, high-stakes decisions.
Organisational DevelopmentTrained in OD principles, I work with the human systems underneath organisations — the dynamics, unspoken rules, and patterns that drive behaviour. I help teams build genuine capacity for change, not just respond to it.
Facilitation & Stakeholder AlignmentI design and run workshops across functions, seniority levels, and cultural contexts — from board members to frontline staff. I read group dynamics, surface tension productively, and find the thread that moves everyone forward.
Research-Led Insight & Design ExecutionI surface what people can't or won't articulate — through design research, observation, and structured inquiry. These insights feed directly into strategy, and I own the process through to execution.
How I Got Here
My path has always woven between nature and systems, art and strategy, inner work and outer impact.
I began at Singapore's School of the Arts as one of its pioneer students, making work about contemplation and what gets lost when cities prioritise efficiency over connection. As an undergraduate Industrial Design student at NUS, I discovered design's power to bridge worldviews. Through the NUS Overseas College Programme, I spent a year in Stockholm at a machine learning start-up — PerceptiLabs — helping scale a product from 0 to 1 as their first and only designer.
At Singapore's Economic Development Board, I joined a digital transformation squad and co-initiated a Design Thinking Training programme to expose the organisation to the value of design. During my Master's in Systems Design and Management at Keio University under the MEXT Scholarship, I positioned design more upstream — as a strategy consideration, not just execution. At the University of Tokyo's DLX Design Lab, I ran futurespective workshops connecting complex research to societal change.
Each step pointed to a similar truth: meaningful change happens when we create space to address the questions others avoid.
Experience
Publications
Awards
- 2024Keio SDM Award of Highest Honors
- 2022MEXT Scholarship (University Recommendation)
- 2020Dean's List, Division of Industrial Design, NUS
- 2019James Dyson Award — National Runner Up
- 2019SustHack Winner, Uppsala, Sweden
- 2016NUS Global Merit Scholarship
Certifications
- 2022JLPT N2
- 2021200H Yoga Teacher Training, Yoga+ Singapore
- 2021Storytelling for Leaders, All Lined Up
- 2021Facilitating Powerful Conversations L1, The Thought Collective
- 2021Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, IIN
- 2021Systems Thinking Certification
Beyond Work
Philosophy and medicine books. Hiking and walking in nature. Eastern traditional medicine. Phenomenology. Cooking and baking with vegetables.
On the side, I design and make jewellery — reading people's implicit needs and translating them into something made exactly for them.