Hanyan was a Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) scholar, before joining the Administrative Service in 2021. She spent the first 10 years of her career at the EDB. She had a number of roles there, including running the EDB office in Washington. She dealt with MNCs and businesses to try and bring them investments into Singapore and create jobs here. 

She was then with the Prime Minister’s Office. There she worked on several policy areas – including on better protecting gig economy workers. 

She later moved to MDDI (Ministry of Digital Development and Information) where she worked on Singapore’s Smart Nation and Artificial Intelligence strategies.

Hanyan is married with three young children.