An Emmy® Award-winning Hollywood producer, Yang is currently the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Yang has worked with some of the most formidable filmmakers and talent in the world. She came to prominence through her collaboration with Steven Spielberg on Empire of the Sun (Warner Bros). That was followed by a long partnership with multiple Academy Award®-winner Oliver Stone—where she served as Executive Producer on the iconic The Joy Luck Club (Disney) and as a Producer on The People vs. Larry Flynt (Columbia Pictures). Her most recent credit is as an Executive Producer on the Oscar®-nominated animated feature, Over the Moon. Based on her original story, the film was directed by legendary animator Glen Keane and released on Netflix in 2020.

Among her many other credits are the Sundance award-winning Dark Matter (Universal Pictures) with Meryl Streep; The Weight of Water (Lionsgate) directed by Academy Award-winner Kathryn Bigelow with Academy Award-winner Sean Penn; Savior (Lionsgate) with Dennis Quaid; South Central (Warner Bros.); High Crimes (Fox) with Morgan Freeman; a Chinese adaptation of the acclaimed Disney franchise High School Musical; cult favorites Zero Effect, by Jake Kasdan, and Shanghai Calling with China Film Group. Yang won an Emmy for the HBO movie Indictment: The McMartin Trial.

Most recently, Yang was named one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Hollywood” by The Hollywood Reporter, Variety's “Power of Women 2023,” and was featured on the Forbes 2024 “50 over 50” List.

Yang began her career by running the first distribution company to market Chinese films to North America. She also brokered the reintroduction of American cinema to the Chinese marketplace on behalf of several studios after a decades-long hiatus.