[ subject ]
caelan h.c.y
chuanyichuanyi@gmail.com
+86 13266809480
caelanh.myportfolio.com
malaysian. based in shenzhen. a decade of senior product, merchandising, and founder work. hong kong. shenzhen. shanghai. tokyo. paris.
positioning
three operating registers. us fashion-tech. chinese dtc. southeast asian growth markets. one practice, not three.
thesis. cultural fluency is a measurable input to product performance. not a soft skill.
trend analytics. bi-led launch architecture. merchandising systems. built across current and prior roles. instantiated on the corporate side. instantiated on the founder side at aerlyte.
languages
trilingual. english (british and american registers). chinese (mandarin and cantonese). malay / bahasa indonesia.
design technical foundations
four disciplines. beneath every product and commercial decision.
[ a ]
design thinking & innovation
(harvard business school online, 2022). problem clarification. empathy-led research. divergent-to-convergent ideation. prototyping. the four-mode innovation framework. process above product.
[ b ]
dfx — design-for-x
engineering brief structure, imported into softgoods. every product written against an explicit objective. manufacturing. cost. durability. weight. environment. quality. the brief leads. styling follows.
[ c ]
cmf — color, material, finishing
industrial-design discipline, applied to apparel. color, material, and surface-finish treated as problem-solving inputs. function. durability. perceived quality. brand cohesion. not styling outputs.
[ d ]
material engineering practice
polymer behavior across pom, abs, pet, pvc, pc, pu, po. sustained depth in nylon. raw-yarn versus processed-yarn behavior. dye chemistry follows yarn-family choice. wash-life follows construction.
the engineering layer beneath aerlyte's 110-gram waterproof jacket. the substrate beneath the systems work below.
signature outcomes
| outcome | context | |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | ~¥600M RMB omnichannel GMV in twelve months, +80% over plan | lead product role on banana-in's cool skin / [-°c] product line, 2021–2022. |
| 02 | ¥2.5B → ¥13B valuation lift at Banana-IN | same period (consistent with publicly reported funding-round disclosures, 36kr, 2021). |
| 03 | AERLYTE — certified hero product, customer-funded brand model | kairen flagship. 110-gram waterproof jacket, third-party certified to gb/t 32614-2023 class i — the highest grade of the chinese hardshell standard. 50% lifetime repeat on zero advertising spend. |
| 04 | 153% YoY Black Friday growth | aelfric eden flagship at dier technology, q4 2024. |
| 05 | Excess inventory reduced to 2% | pricing and lifecycle systems deployed at dier (excluding 10% safety stock), fy24 close. |
| 06 | 18% paid-media CPC reduction | bi-led launch targeting and trend system built at dier. |
| 07 | 84% / 54% launch success rate | november and december 2024 at dier. 100–500 units sold within 30 days of launch. |
| 08 | 900+ SKUs per season | strategic oversight, aelfric eden at dier (us + de markets). |
| 09 | 30–35 direct reports | five functional teams: merchandising, research and analytics, trend r&d, product development, product engineering. |
bespoke systems capability
every company runs on different clockwork. different data shape. different decision cycle. different team architecture. off-the-shelf trend frameworks, bi templates, and merchandising playbooks do not survive contact with a real operating environment.
the portable capability is diagnostic and constructive. read what a specific organization needs. build the system that fits its clockwork. starting toolkit, refined across senior product and merchandising roles:
toolkit
- closed-loop architecture. research feeds assortment. assortment feeds performance. performance feeds back into research.
- cultural-fit scoring at the product level. a weighted, scoreable, ai-assisted variable.
- cultural-traction quantification. artist influence, movement integration, community strength — scoreable inputs.
- category-to-signal pipeline. keystone-category screening filtered through demographic-fit tagging.
deployment shape differs by company. the capability is the same. the instance currently running at the engaged organization belongs to them. the discipline of building one is mine to bring.
current deployment outcomes. ~13.6% reduction in paid-traffic dependency on new launches. 15–30% improvement in launch success rate (q1 2025).
kairen (shenzhen) brand management co. ltd — founder & principal
innovation-led brand-management and consultancy entity. flagship consumer brand: aerlyte. selected b-side consultancy: mobi garden (挪客). asian startup award shortlist, beyond international tech expo (macau), 2024. post-seed valuation: ¥10m.
aerlyte — an ultralight technical-apparel brand operating against a design-decision discipline. each product is written to a dfx (design-for-x) objective brief. cmf operates as problem-solving, not as the styling layer.
the hero piece. a 110-gram waterproof jacket. to our knowledge the lightest fully-featured hardshell at its certified performance grade. full zip. hood. pockets. fabric third-party certified at uts jiangsu against gb/t 32614-2023 class i — the highest grade of the chinese hardshell standard. ≥20,000 mm hydrostatic head. 16,800 g/m²/24h mvtr. ilac-mra recognized.
thesis. build the brand the way a small team in shenzhen can sustain. slowly. pieces we can stand behind. asian climate. asian body. asian everyday. references: snow peak. and wander. houdini. yamatomichi. tagline: life unbound.
traction · zero ad spend
- first drop of the 110g hero sold approximately 50 units in 48 hours at ¥800. later units cleared at ¥1,800.
- 365-day active customer base · 50% lifetime repeat · ¥509 new-buyer aov · 67.6% t1 / nt1 buyers.
- demand has consistently outpaced our small-team production. when supply lagged behind, customers refused refunds and waited for the next run.
kairen runs a selective b-side consultancy in outdoor and technical-apparel product, currently engaged with mobi garden (挪客). the consultancy generates the cash that funds aerlyte's reinvestment without dilution.
dier technology co. ltd — merchandising director
cross-border fashion e-commerce serving the us and german markets, operating at nine-figure-usd group gsv across multiple brands. the flagship contributes the majority of group revenue.
strategic oversight, end-to-end. 900+ sku product ecosystem per season. functional bridge between creative, data, and operations. five teams. merchandising. research and analytics. trend r&d. product development. product engineering.
1. flagship q4 campaign (2024)
the end-of-year campaign exceeded the full-year revenue target on the flagship brand. two levers carried the result.
- cr50 program. rebranded and consolidated the top 50 skus for black friday. targeted cart-abandonment flash sales lifted channel traffic 10–15% yoy. flash-sale pages contributed 15–20% of organic traffic.
- agile launch system. in-house trend analytics and demographic segmentation surfaced high-pmf opportunities. launch success rate: 84% in november, 54% in december.
headline outcome: 153% yoy black friday growth on the flagship brand.
2. long-tail sku lifecycle program
a tiered dynamic markdown system, indexed to aging, historical conversion, and inventory holding cost. evergreen styles reclassified into permanent collection with refreshed visuals and bundle strategy. seasonal thematic bundles introduced — winter essentials, christmas gifts, new year. end-of-q4 excess inventory: 12% total. 10% safety stock. 2% actual unsold.
3. research & analytics function, from scratch
the organization had no formal research, analytics, or trend infrastructure. department-wide data governance. a restructured bi layer. the closed-loop trend system. result by q1 2025: ~13.6% reduction in paid-traffic dependency, 15–30% improvement in launch success rates.
banana-in (shenzhen sanliren co. ltd) — sr. designer / product manager
innovation-led intimate apparel brand expanding into broader apparel and accessories.
lead product role on the cool skin / [-°c] product line — the company's breakthrough into functional apparel.
outcomes
- ~¥600m rmb omnichannel gmv in twelve months, +80% over plan on cool skin alone.
- 700% yoy growth in the apparel segment.
- company valuation: ¥2.5b → ¥13b during the period (consistent with publicly reported funding-round disclosures, 36kr, 2021).
- multiple core skus cleared >85% sell-through within 60 days.
- built a 10–18 month development lead over competitors.
method
- audited internal capability. defined defensible competitive assets. shaped a high-barrier market-entry strategy.
- built a cross-functional decision framework — consumer insight, competitive benchmarking, product-function analysis, scalability metrics.
- imported industrial-design methodology (cmf, ie) into softgoods. re-engineered modular trims and adaptive closures.
beneunder (shenzhen jianzi technology / 簡字科技) — product manager, hats & accessories
product management across headwear and accessories at a leading chinese functional-apparel brand.
core scope: ownership of the structural-hat (結構帽) and baseball-cap (鴨舌帽) lines from concept through commercialization. brief, supplier, structural engineering, launch.
outcomes
- lines under direct ownership accounted for approximately 70% of company hat-category gsv by the end of tenure.
- selected hero pieces — becker, skyline (天際 series), trajectory (軌跡 series), and the double-sided (雙面) series — remain beneunder's category leads since.
- led category-expansion work across accessory adjacencies, opening the sku map that later supported broader apparel growth.
method
each hat treated as a small piece of industrial design rather than as a softgood. structural pattern. modular component design. materials science against weather and weight. the same discipline carried into cool skin at banana-in and into the 110-gram-jacket engineering at aerlyte.
upar — technical designer, running & outdoor
co-designer at upar (跑界文化体育投资) — a running and outdoor brand led by paul tong (former general manager, gucci greater china). creative collaborators included edison chen and the technical-streetwear lineage of kazuki kuraishi and koji ogawa (both founding contributors to the north face urban exploration). sustained exposure to the japanese consumer register and to the urban-technical-apparel discipline. both later fed the founder-track work at aerlyte.
yimeng technology co. ltd (衣夢 / new asia group) — creative designer
manufacturing-technology arm of new asia group. owned the design-side integration of next-generation production technology into apparel workflows.
- 3d garment construction — moving pattern development from flat-pattern logic into volumetric construction.
- 3d pattern engineering — pattern as engineering discipline, not styling output.
- automated cutting systems integration into a working production line.
- smart-fit mirror integration — early chinese-market retail-tech pilot bridging body-scanning data into the sizing and fit pipeline.
the first sustained operating context for pattern as engineering and manufacturing-technology as a problem-solving discipline. also the first test of collaborative leadership at scale — a 30-person team at approximately age 22.
house of siren co. ltd — sr. designer (freelance)
freelance design lead at a hong kong design house.
lane crawford joyce group — design intern (institutional placement)
multi-region rotation through lane crawford joyce group operations. institutional design placement. luxury multi-brand retail. four geographies. single window. the entry point into cross-regional operating fluency.
education & certifications
hong kong design institute
a graphic-design vocabulary preceded the formal womenswear training at hkdi — symbol, icon, composition, and function as the initial register. pattern as engineering and garment construction as graphic logic became the bridge into apparel.
paris american academy
certifications
harvard business school (online) — design thinking and innovation · 2022
languages & cultural register
| language | fluency | use case |
|---|---|---|
| english | native, british + american | cross-border dtc, us/eu, press |
| mandarin | native, written + spoken | shenzhen ops, supplier neg., internal leadership |
| cantonese | native | hong kong industry, family-business |
| malay / bahasa | native, written + spoken | southeast asia repatriation |
recognition
beyond international tech expo (macau) — asian startup award shortlist (kairen design / aerlyte) · 2024
selected engagements
available for: senior merchandising and product-strategy roles. advisory and board seats at growth-stage dtc. speaking and writing — fashion, ai-augmented operations, technical-apparel engineering, cross-cultural commerce.