Yang was president of World Entertainment in
San Francisco. She revived this small, local distributor of Hong Kong films, expanded it into exhibition, and was able to garner exclusive representation rights in North America for all films produced in the
People's Republic of China. These films included filmmakers
Zhang Yimou and
Chen Kaige, among others. Yang's first producing effort was the documentary film,
East to West: America Through the Eyes of a Chinese. Yang was hired by several major studios to re-introduce American cinema to the Chinese marketplace after a long hiatus. From 1985 to 1987, she represented three major studios —
Universal,
Paramount, and
MGM/
United Artists — and was able to broker the first sale of American studio movies to China since 1949. In 1985, she was hired to be
Steven Spielberg's eyes and ears in China for the filming of the historic production of
Empire of the Sun, responsible for liaising with both national and local levels of the Chinese government for its largest production to date. She then segued into a production position at Universal, supervising Spielberg's Amblin account. From 1989 to 1996, Yang served as president of Ixtlan, the company she formed with
Academy Award-winning Writer/Director
Oliver Stone, spearheading all aspects of the company's development and production. At Ixtlan, she produced
The People vs. Larry Flynt. The film won the 1996
Golden Globe Awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay, and garnered
Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Actor. Yang also served as executive producer of the groundbreaking film
The Joy Luck Club, based on the best-selling novel by
Amy Tan and directed by
Wayne Wang. Yang executive produced
Indictment: The McMartin Trial for which she won both
Emmy and
Golden Globe Awards for Best Made for Television Movie. Following her seven-year stint at Ixtlan, she formed the Manifest Film Company with
Lisa Henson. Manifest Productions include
Carl Franklin's
High Crimes, with
Morgan Freeman;
The Weight of Water, from Academy-Award-winning director
Kathryn Bigelow and starring
Sean Penn;
Zero Effect, starring
Bill Pullman and
Ben Stiller; and
Savior starring
Dennis Quaid. Yang also served as the Managing Director in charge of creative content and production at Tang Media Partners. Yang produced the acclaimed film
Dark Matter, directed by
Chen Shi-Zheng and starring Chinese actor
Liu Ye and
Meryl Streep.
Dark Matter premiered at the
2007 Sundance Film Festival and won the
Alfred P. Sloan Prize. In 2009, Yang was sought out by Disney Studios to produce
High School Musical for Chinese audiences. Her last narrative feature was
Shanghai Calling, a romantic comedy set in contemporary Shanghai. Yang was as an Executive Producer on the film,
Documented, On July 19, 2022, Yang was feted at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures with a pillar named in her honor. She is the first Asian American woman to have a pillar at the museum. On August 2, 2022, at a meeting of the Board of Governors, Yang was elected as president of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, replacing outgoing President
David Rubin, who was ineligible to be re-elected. This made her the first Asian American President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the fourth woman to hold that position. In July 2025, Yang partnered with South Korean entertainment company CJ ENM,
Miky Lee, and
Dominic Ng to oversee a new label called First Light StoryHouse, which is dedicated to Asian and Asian American storytelling for major studios and streamers.
Membership and community participation Yang is the president of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; a member of the Committee of 100, an organization of prominent Chinese-Americans; an advisory board member of Asia Society Southern California; the National Committee on US-China Relations and an advisory board member of CAPE, the Coalition of Asian-Pacific Americans in Entertainment. She has taught producing at the
Sundance Institute and the
Independent Feature Project. She is involved with a number of arts, community and political organizations. She is a co-founder of Gold House, a collective of influential Asians across entertainment, technology, lifestyle, and business. She has also been recognized with a Presidential Fellowship at
Loyola Marymount University. ==Filmography==