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WG’96 Irina Yuen
Expanding CBS MarketWatch.com's
Reach and Revenue
After two years in a traditional corporate environment as an associate at
A.T. Kearney Inc., Irina Yuen got the
itch to make a change.
Today, Yuen, WG'96, seems to
have found her niche in her current
post as senior director of business
development for San Francisco-based
CBS MarketWatch.com, a leading on-line financial site offering breaking
news, analysis and market data for
professional and individual investors.
"I have this need to create and lead
that comes with an entrepreneurial
environment, and I only learned that about myself through experience,"
she says. Yuen, 30, who joined MarketWatch.com in late 1998, manages
MarketWatch's business development group, focusing on distribution,
e-commerce and strategic investment activities. Since joining MarketWatch,
Yuen has negotiated and executed partnership deals with key companies
including AOL, Excite, Alta Vista, Earthlink and E*Trade, relationships that
significantly increased MarketWatch's reach and revenue. During her brief
tenure, CBS MarketWatch.com moved from fourth to first in the Media
Metrix rankings, which measure Internet audience usage.
Yuen likens her role at MarketWatch to a stint as a summer trader
in 1995. "You have to make very calculated decisions very quickly - not
minutes or seconds, but that's the way it feels sometimes. There are a
million things going on, and there's so much information that you have
to absorb and digest."
She enjoys this edge - the ability and necessity to move quickly
that comes with working amid the white-water rush of the on-line
media business. Financial news and information, Yuen points out,
is an extremely competitive, saturated market. "Literally, things are
announced on a daily basis that fundamentally shift the competitive
landscape. You have to be acutely aware of what's going on. We have
to be on our toes." MarketWatch.com's challenge, Yuen says, is to
create a "distinct voice" amid the din and continue to roll out applications that foster customer loyalty.
Yuen first attended Penn as an undergraduate, earning a degree
in international relations in 1990. After graduation, she lived in Europe,
then returned for a position as a dealer for The Toyo Trust & Banking
Co. in New York. At Toyo, she jointly managed a multi-currency portfolio
and wrote daily and weekly market reports and interest rate forecasts,
among other duties. She returned to Penn in 1994 to pursue dual
degrees: an MBA and an MA from The Joseph H. Lauder Institute of
Management and International Studies.
But despite her long hours and focused career path, Yuen has a distinct alter ego with interests in volunteer work and the arts. Along with
physical pursuits such as hiking, skiing, and running, she is passionate
about the theater and has studied at a fine arts conservatory, focusing
on acting. Her leadership leanings are also apparent in her non-professional
pursuits: while in New York during the early part of her career,
she co-founded a non-profit organization called Minds Matter of NYC,
Inc. that helped inner-city youth gain admission to competitive academic
summer programs and, eventually, college. Yuen managed all aspects of
the non-profit, which under her leadership grew to 30 students, 110 volunteers
and $40,000 funding. Her only regret about moving to the Bay
Area: the hectic pace of her professional life has meant very little time
for similar community outreach. "It's very important to me; I'm working
to try to recapture the balance again," she says.
As for the future, Yuen says she'll continue to follow her instincts."The
most important thing for me is to have fun and to continue learning."
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