Qihua (Mia) Wang

In professional settings, I proudly keep my Chinese name: Qihua. "Qi" means playing chess, and "Hua" means painting and drawing. The only problem? Nobody can pronounce it. I sometimes watch people struggle and politely smile while they invent entirely new sounds.

But I wanted to keep it. My name carries my Asian identity, and I’ve never wanted to erase that part of myself.

What’s funny is that among family and friends in China, no one actually calls me Qihua. They all call me by my Western name — Mia. And truth be told, Mia feels even more "me." It’s short, easy, and I respond instantly when someone says it. So depending on where you meet me, I might be "Qihua" (the mysterious, unpronounceable professional) or "Mia" (the familiar, approachable version). Both are true, and both are me.

As a kid, I was a competitive ping pong player. I loved the rush of competition, the laser focus of a rally, and the relentless drive to improve after each match. For me, ping pong wasn’t just a sport; it was a way to test my limits — mentally, physically, and even emotionally.

At ten years old I already made my first biggest decision: should I pursue a professional sports career, or should I stay in school? Eventually, I chose education. Looking back, it was absolutely the right call.

The funny part? When French people ask me casually, “Tu sais jouer un peu au ping-pong ?” I usually shrug and say, “Oh, just a little…”

For more than 20 years, public speaking has been my arena. Back in university, I entered every single competition I could find — and I won. From local contests to major tournaments, I collected prize after prize, the stage could be my home. And this was long before AI could draft speeches — every word came from late nights, endless rewrites, and way too much caffeine.

What often surprises people is the contrast. In everyday life, I’m rather low-profile, calm, and not the first one to seek attention. But when I step on stage and take a microphone in hand, something shifts. My energy spikes, and I transform into someone else entirely.

With a mic, I’m fearless. For me, winning competitions was thrilling, but the real prize has always been that electric connection with an audience. That moment when words truly land. And maybe, just maybe, that’s my superpower.

I built my first personal website at 12. Here’s the funny part: I didn’t even have internet access back then. I stumbled upon a massive 300-page book on HTML and web building, and I decided to learn by myself. I typed every single line of code manually, slowly piecing together something that resembled a "website."

The result? It was objectively ugly. Bright colors clashed, fonts were all over the place, and — cherry on top — I added a looping background music of the most popular song of that year. I thought it was genius.

When I entered it into a web-building competition, I lost, of course. But that failure was my first attempt at coding. Fast forward to today, and here I am building websites again — except now, AI does the heavy lifting and there is no tacky pop song.

When I first arrived in France, I didn’t speak a word of French. Everyone told me: if you want to work here, you must learn the language. So I gave myself one year. I studied, practiced, and pushed myself — and at the end of that year, I landed a job in top strategy consulting.

But not before a rather… unforgettable mistake.

In one interview, with McKinsey, I confused two words in French. One of them is totally fine, but the other is a word no one — absolutely no one — should ever say in a professional setting. Guess which one I used? The look on the interviewer’s face said it all. I was horrified when I later found out what I had actually said. It cost me the job, but it gave me one of my funniest (and most humbling) stories.

After years of intense business travel, I was exhausted. On January 1, 2020, I made a very specific wish: “This year, I want a year without flying.” I thought maybe I’d get fewer work trips, maybe more time at home.

Well, we all know what happened next. Not just me — nobody in the world was flying in 2020. My friends still tease me about it: "Mia, next time, maybe wish for world peace instead." Now I always add a little disclaimer when I make a wish: careful with the wording, because the universe has a funny way of taking me way too literally.