Sophia Yang: Entrepreneur and Executive Director
Name:
Sophia Yang
Age:
26
Occupation:
Founder at Threading Change
Name:
Sophia Yang
Age:
26
Occupation:
Founder at Threading Change
My climate origin story:
I always had a really big interest in fashion. I remember in high school I would go to the mall pretty much every week. I would go to Forever 21 or Old Navy and buy the cheap clothes of a typical teenager. I fell into the climate world through trying to rectify my path and understand how that system was inherently broken. But the watershed moment was when I attended COP25 in 2019, the U.N Climate Change Conference in Madrid. I remember being at the one year anniversary signing of the UN Sustainable Fashion Charter and looking at the 11 people that were standing on that stage. There were four main things I noticed at that moment. Number one, they said we're up here today representing the global fashion industry, when there were no garment workers up there and when there was only one visible person of colour. Everybody else was Caucasian from either Europe or America. Number two, there were no young people present in any of the panels, any of the talks, even though they are one of the largest consumers of fashion and also the leaders of tomorrow. The third thing I noticed was that there was no mention of any of the humanitarian impacts of fashion. The fashion industry cannot be boiled down to just the sustainability side when it really is so intersectional. There are real people and real lives behind your clothes that are suffering at the hands of overconsumption, overproduction and corporate greed. So from that moment on, I was determined to create change wherever possible. In May 2020, when my work hours got cut in half because of the pandemic, I had more free time on my hands and I took the opportunity to talk to as many people as I possibly could about ethical fashion, sustainable sourcing and also circular economy. And from then, the idea of Threading Change was born. In October 2020, we officially launched as a not for profit organisation, and we've been growing and learning change ever since.
A useful skill of mine:
A skill that's crucial that I've had to learn and realise is delegation and prioritisation. When you are a nonprofit founder, you wear so many hats – whether it's budgeting, financial projections, partnerships, sponsorship or managing the board, it’s really easy to get overwhelmed with all these different things. I realise now that delegation is so important. I had to understand what skills I don’t have to try and find people that fill that need while still aligning with our organisation’s values. The other thing is its prioritisation. There's a billion things to do every single day, and you can easily get lost. What I've learned throughout the last couple of years is that you have to really think about the end goal. In the grand scheme of things, does it really matter what the digital asset looks like if it's only going to be used just for this one particular campaign? I used to be a very to-do-list kind of person, getting so bogged down by the details, that I would lose track of the bigger picture. And the last skill that is imperative for anything you do is the willingness to learn, the openness to fail, and also the willingness to to be criticised and to hear feedback. There's always room to grow, there's always room to improve and recognizing that is really important for me as we move along with the organisation.
A piece of advice:
I would say the most important thing is to be wary of the comparison game. It's so easy to compare your journey to someone else's. Healthy competition is always okay if it keeps you going and keeps you motivated. But be careful not to get lost in another person's journey. Their story isn’t your story. It’s not your journey. It's not your life. You have to carve your own path, understand what you're good at and take hold of that strategically. I think that's the best advice I can give because I fell into that trap. And while sometimes it's helped me be inspired and stay motivated, other times it has made me fall asleep when really I could have been focused on the things that we're good at. Don't play the comparison game because you're your own person with your own skill sets on your own journey.