About Me

My name is Yaovi Ayeh. I grew up in Togo until I was nine, when my mother, who had left two years earlier alone with no plans except a dream and determination to give her kids a better life. Two years later she brought us to Bronx, NY to join her. She did all of this because she believed her children deserved more than what the world had already decided for them. I didn't fully understand what she'd done until I went back to Togo in my early twenties and saw, for the first time, the life I might have lived. I came home carrying something I still haven't put down: a responsibility to do something with this life that justifies the risk she took.

I don't tell that story to set up a rags-to-riches arc. I tell it because it's the reason I care so deeply about what I do. About building things that actually matter. About strategy over noise. About the idea that one person's decision, one leap of faith, can change the entire trajectory of a generation.

Today I'm a product manager at Brex, where I've spent three years building Brex Travel from scratch. Before that I founded a startup, worked in blockchain, and started my career as a hardware engineer. I studied Electrical Engineering in undergrad because I was a kid who found electronics fascinating. I took them apart as a kid to see what was inside. That curiosity never left. It just found new things to take apart: software, businesses, strategies. Outside of work I enjoy spending time with family and any activity that gets me moving. I currently have a knee injury keeping me from running (something that's always allowed me to unwind) but this is temporary. I currently live with my wife in NYC after moving from LA. I tell myself I'm moving back to LA one day. I mean it every time I say it.