Michelle Koo Hayashi

Michelle Koo Hayashi

History

Philanthropist and entrepreneur Michelle Koo Hayashi was born in Taiwan, raised in Japan, and emigrated to the US in 2011.She was the CEO of a Tokyo-based real estate investment firm and founder of a wedding online planning company in Taiwan. Michelle also worked as an account executive for Koo’s Cable, the largest cable and satellite TV company in Taiwan. As a teenager, she founded Chinese Children Charity Association, a Taiwan-based children’s charitable organization that remains active today. She has been a board member of nonprofits in Taiwan and Japan and, since relocating to the US, has been a board member of the China Institute and MOCA, the Museum of Chinese in America. Michelle received her MBA from Harvard Business School and an undergraduate degree of Law & Political Science from Keio University in Japan. She is fluent in Japanese, Mandarin, Taiwanese, and English. BORN TO BE is her first film.

Profile

Michelle Koo Hayashi

Movies

Born to Be
Born to Be
Producer
Soon after New York state passed a 2015 law that health insurance should cover transgender-related care and services, director Tania Cypriano and producer Michelle Hayashi began bringing their cameras behind the scenes at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, where this remarkable documentary captures the emotional and physical journey of surgical transitioning. Lending equal narrative weight to the experiences of the center’s groundbreaking surgeon Dr. Jess Ting and those of his diverse group of patients, BORN TO BE perfectly balances compassionate personal storytelling and fly-on-the-wall vérité. It’s a film of astonishing access—most importantly into the lives, joys, and fears of the people at its center.