From Psychology to Personal Branding: How Mel Yu Turned Adversity Into a Business Built Around Being Seen
Synopsis
Mel Yu’s journey from psychology to events, entrepreneurship and personal branding was shaped by grief, identity and adversity. Today, the MCO Events owner helps founders tell their stories, build authentic brands and step confidently into the spotlight.
Entrepreneurship is never as easy as it looks from the outside. Decades of uncertainty, detours and life experiences colour the making of a successful business that quietly define the way founders think, work, and lead. Mel Yu, Fractional Head of Brand for Founders & CEOs has been through the psychology, grief, Events and Entrepreneurship and on to Personal Branding and Business Coaching.
Yu is the current owner of MCO Events, personal branding expert, and business coach. Though seemingly distinct professions, she views them as different facets of the same coin, making meaningful connections and being understood. Her purpose is always to make people feel seen and heard whether she is producing an event, assisting someone to tell their story or working with a business owner.
"They all light me up. They do, they really do. Each one lights me up in a different way. But if I look at the things that really, the foundation of why I do what I do is allowing people to feel seen, heard, understood," she adds.
Psychology Was the Starting Point
As a child, Yu was inspired to pursue a career in psychology as her first move towards her career. She grew up in a single-parent household after the age of three, which instigated her interest in relationships and human behaviour. She wanted to understand why people think the way they do, why relationships develop in certain ways and what makes people who they are.
But her life derailed significantly when she lost her late husband Angus to suicide at the age of 23. This had a massive impact on her personal and professional life. She was suspended for six months from practicing as a psychologist which she now feels was necessary, as she worked through her own healing process.
''I was suspended from being a psych for six months, which is the best thing that ever happened to me. Supervisors were like, you need to pump the brakes and not actually work on this for six months, which was in hindsight, absolutely the right call because I was so traumatized and triggered,'' Yu states.
While not in psychology, Yu became a part of the events business. The idea of running tattoo conventions throughout Australia was a real career switch but one she had a personal touch for. Angus was well tattooed and Yu thinks that one of the reasons she was so drawn to the industry was to keep his memory alive and feel closer to him.
However, loss was not the only reason she stayed. Yu found she had a knack for project management and event production, and the conventions provided her with a new sense of purpose in the community she was a part of.
"I ended up in events to try and keep his memory alive, to assimilate and be closer to him. But I also happen to be really good at it. I happen to be really good at project management and running events," she asssets.
From events to entrepreneurship
For several years, Yu honed her events skills before it occurred to her she wanted to start her own company at the age of 27. It was a dream come true, and that dream came true at MCO Events, which eventually went on to host projects like Ego Expo, which Yu calls Australia's biggest street culture expo.
The allure of events, though, wasn't just in the scale of the productions. She developed a passion for cultural influences around tattooing and street culture but most of all, what happens when people come into a space and meet each other.
"I really fell in love with this sort of subculture of tattoo, punk rock, you know, like this whole rock and roll kind of culture. Yeah. And then I just fell in love with the community. I fell in love with all of the planning and then seeing the doors open and people coming together and just uniting and getting along and creating a moment, creating memories. I really, really loved that," she says.
It had a profound effect on Yu's thinking about branding. She views events as 'branding on life' and each interaction as a part of the customer's experience. This connection with the audience begins long before the event itself, via the website, social channels, ticketing, emails and how the audience is greeted when they arrive at the event.
Yu doesn't consider those details to be extras. They're a part of the story.
Learning Not to Blend In
Her personal branding is also a part of her childhood experiences. As part of the only Asian family in her community, Yu recalls being bullied for being Chinese and the pressure to fit-in. She tells me that standing out as a kid wasn't what she wanted.
"As a kid, you're like, how do I blend in? How do I belong? So how am I going to actually get it done, you know? "Beware of getting too much attention," Yu explains.
She had a different viewpoint as she grew older. She tried to downplay who she is, and it became her strength, and it ultimately helped shape her personal brand.
"Recognizing now why I love branding so much if you weren't meant to blend in. You were meant to stand out into the light and step into the light and stand out from the crowd. That's your superpower. There's only one of you, one of one of me," she notes.
The Resilience Behind the Business
There are other rough patches in Yu's story such as the loss of her father from cancer, failed relationships and experiences that she says are extremely painful. She doesn't consider those experiences to be apart from her entrepreneurial identity. Rather, they have helped shape her tenacity and see things differently in the world of business.
Yu's journey into entrepreneurship isn't a straight path that leads to success. It involves falling down, adjusting and rising again, even if the quickest way to get there is to quit.
‘'Entrepreneurship. If you're going to enter entrepreneurship and business, it is like swallowing glass every single day and then waking up the next day, going back for more. So, it's a certain type of breed, right?'’ Yu mentions.
Over the past ten years, she has made many strides in events, which she says is down to being consistent and disciplined. People occasionally ask her how she has become so proficient at what she does, but the truth is, she has been doing it for years and continues to improve it.
That mindset is now alive in all three aspects of her enterprise. Events enable Yu to build communities and experiences, personal branding to discover and express identity, and business coaching to help people make decisions about building something on their own.
Although Yu began his journey with the intent to understand people through psychology, she has gone where her curiosity took her. Loss, identity and reinvention have become a part of her lens in business today, where it is not about creating a brand, but being comfortable enough to be seen.
Pooja Malik is a business journalist with over six years of experience covering startups, entrepreneurship, and emerging trends. She has previously worked with leading media platforms such as YourStory Media and BW BusinessWorld, where she reported on business, policy, and market developments. Currently, she serves as Editor at The Inspirepreneur Magazine, where she writes and edits stories across business, lifestyle, and travel, with a focus on clarity, accuracy, and reader relevance.
