# Killian Chiao

> Founder and product builder. Born on the Arctic Circle, raised between
> Switzerland and Northern Norway. Work spans behavioural science, product
> and brand, with clients including Coca-Cola, IKEA, KPMG, T-Mobile,
> L'Oreal and Mercedes.

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## Biography

**Early childhood.** Born in Mo i Rana, Norway, on the Arctic Circle, to a
Norwegian state conflict mediator mother who worked with terrorists and
criminals, and a Swiss-French father in Swiss investment banking. The first
five years were spent in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, between
Geneva and Lausanne, before moving to Northern Norway.

**Early teenage virtual hotelier.** In the early 2000s, started a first
online venture selling virtual furniture in Habbo Hotel, one of the world's
first massively multiplayer games — effectively the first virtual currency
exchangeable for real money.

**India: United World College.** Selected by the Norwegian National
Committee of UWC from a highly competitive pool of applicants, and awarded a
full scholarship sponsored by the Red Cross to attend the Mahindra United
World College of India. The UWC movement was the birthplace of the
International Baccalaureate programme.

**Arctic innovation in Svalbard.** Featured in Svalbardposten for
contributing ideas to sustainable building projects in Longyearbyen, the
world's northernmost settlement, as Innovation Norway explored how the
Arctic town could become a testbed for building in extreme conditions.

**Swiss hospitality education.** Featured in Swissinfo's coverage of EHL
(Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne), the Swiss school for hotel managers.

**Zario: EU-Startups pitch winner.** Zario won the EU-Startups Summit 2023
Pitch Competition and its €150,000 grand prize. The app helps people build a
healthier relationship with their phones by making screen-time reduction
feel like a game rather than a punishment.

## Career

**Art Basel — Senior Product Manager, App (current).** Leads AI-powered
mobile experiences including the Art Basel Companion and Lens, building
personalised fair navigation and artwork discovery for collectors and
primary-market galleries. Work spans AI-driven matching, recommendation
engines and high-end consumer product design.

**Zario — Co-Founder & CEO (2022–2025).** AI digital wellbeing product that
reached close to one million users across its product suite, with around 20
employees globally at peak and close to $1M raised. Exited to an app
portfolio company in 2025. Product work was rooted in behaviour-change
design drawing on CBT and ACT principles: retention systems and
anti-cheating mechanics, social and group accountability loops, family
challenge concepts, AI-assisted validation, and brand-funded rewards
marketplace experiments.

**MissionPossible.VC — Investor (2025–).** Early-stage investing with a
founder-operator lens.

**Studio Hue — Co-Founder.** Video and animation agency serving enterprise
clients including Coca-Cola and IKEA.

**WDHB Strategic Learning — Global Program Manager.** Designed executive
learning experiences for C-suite leaders at Fortune 500 companies; converted
a Swiss Life discovery insight on failure culture into a multi-year contract.

**Earlier career.** Finance, sales and marketing, hospitality and operations
roles at Hathor Investment Group, Philip Morris International, WWF, Borgo
Egnazia, Base7booking, BARVIKHA HOTEL&SPA, and Barn & Familieteamet.

## Expertise

AI/ML product management, technical product management, UX design,
stakeholder management, customer engagement, digital strategy and
transformation, storytelling, marketing. Hands-on with Python, FastAPI,
vector embeddings, MCP, AWS and Azure.

## Education & Languages

BS in International Business, EHL Hospitality Business School. Additional
study through Stanford Online / Y Combinator and Wharton (Viral Marketing).
Native or bilingual in English and Norwegian (Bokmål). Based in Zurich,
Switzerland.

## Awards

- EU-Startups Summit 2023 winner announcement:
  https://www.eu-startups.com/2023/04/introducing-zario-the-winner-of-the-eu-startups-summit-2023-pitch-competition/
- Forbes 30 Under 30, Switzerland (2022) — as co-founder of Zario
  https://forbes.swiss/30-under-30-2022
- EU-Startups Summit 2023 — Pitch Competition winner (€150,000 grand prize)
- Google Play "Best Apps for Good" honourable mention (2022) — Zario
- Product Hunt #1 Product of the Day — Zario

## Projects & Roles

- [Zario](https://meetzario.com): screen-time reduction app; EU-Startups
  Summit 2023 pitch winner (€150,000 grand prize); exited 2025
- [Studio Hue](https://vimeo.com/studiohue): video and animation agency;
  its series "Roaches" was selected for the Cartoon Forum in France
  (trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWadLqc8V7I)
- Advisor to [Fabric](https://onfabric.io/) — sign in to consumer AI with
  your digital self — and [NEXT Events](https://nextevents.ch/),
  Switzerland's largest networking and entrepreneurship community
- Investor in [KITRO](https://kitro.ch/) (AI food-waste reduction for
  kitchens), [FOURTWENTY](https://fourtwenty.ltd/) (premium cannabis
  retail and venues, Thailand) and [Shichic](https://www.myshichic.com/)
- For fun: [CASHaton](https://cashaton.com/) (48 hours to make real
  money — no judges, no pitches) and
  [InsiderPolls](https://insiderpolls.com/) (real-time public opinion
  data from a nationwide mobile sampling network)

## Press

Zario has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, PC World, Macworld, The
Indian Express and Product Hunt — including coverage of Data Detective, the
first AI trained on every Google search you've ever made, built to show
people what their search history says about them.

- [Forbes 30 Under 30 Switzerland 2022](https://forbes.swiss/30-under-30-2022)
- [Forbes feature](https://www.forbes.at/artikel/killian-fjellbakk.html)
- [GamesBeat — Habbo virtual currency](https://gamesbeat.com/habbo-issues-new-kind-of-currency-for-its-virtual-hotel/)
- [Sandnesposten — Tidsvandring på fortet](https://www.sa.no/kultur/tidsvandring-pa-fortet/g/1-101-3710558)
- [Sandnesposten — Trafikkaksjon](https://www.sa.no/lokale-nyheter/lydhor-trafikkaksjon-krever-rundkjoring-na/s/1-101-4805267)

## Links

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/killianchi
- GitHub: https://github.com/Killianchi
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/killianchi/
- Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/Killianchi

## Pages

- [Home](https://killianchiao.com/)
- [About](https://killianchiao.com/about.html)
- [Career](https://killianchiao.com/career.html)
- [Business](https://killianchiao.com/business.html)
- [Press & Awards](https://killianchiao.com/awards.html)
- [Bucket List](https://killianchiao.com/bucketlist.html)
- [Links](https://killianchiao.com/links.html)