Leon Ho is the Founder and CEO of Lifehack, which he started in 2005 as a way to share his personal productivity hacks to make life easier. Since then, he has grown Lifehack into one of the most read productivity, health and lifestyle websites in the world - with over 12 million monthly readers. He has been listed as Business Week's #4 "Top 24 Young Asian Entrepreneurs", and with over 30,000 articles published at Lifehack, is now widely recognized as a productivity and management expert through his pioneering work at discovering, applying and spreading the secrets of personal development to the world.
Leon began as a software engineer at Red Hat, where he was quickly promoted as a manager overseeing a team of mixed nationalities engineers. It was not long before he realized that simple hard work was not enough to cope with the increasing complexity and workload. Before "leverage" became a common business buzzword, Leon was finding ways to go beyond his "fixed ability". To level up his productivity he invested heavily in reading books on productivity and management, testing them himself through trial and error and realizing which techniques actually worked over others. It was at this time that he began to discover "lifehacks", which were (at the time) simple tricks and methods to increase productivity. Using these lifehacks to vastly increase his performance, Leon quickly outpaced the demands of his work and by his mid-20s had already successfully managed over 150 engineering projects. In the span of less than 5 years, he had achieved more than what other project managers could do in 10.
After compiling an immensely valuable treasure trove of productivity tips and methods, Leon decided to summarize his experiences and publish them online. This is how Lifehack was born.
Leon quickly made a name for himself, and the initial popularity of his shared Lifehacks was overwhelming because it addressed a common need that all people share in the world - not having enough time. This response made Leon realize that climbing the traditional career ladder wasn’t his true calling. There was a new mission - to positively influence more and more people through this knowledge - Leon quit his job to found his first company and became an entrepreneur dedicated to Lifehack and fulfilling this goal.
Ever since, Leon has pushed Lifehack to expand beyond its initial boundaries. From simple productivity hacks, Lifehack now covers almost all aspects of our work and personal lives including health, relationships, parenting and productivity. Lifehack has linked up experts and contributors from all over the world to share their valuable knowledge and experience, and Leon continues to lead it forward from the helm discovering better ways, better ideas, and better perspectives.
With over 12 years as a leader, Leon is still just as passionate about pushing his limits and sharing his secrets about personal development as he was when he began. Through Leon's efforts, today Lifehack is a world class team that still retains its start up mentality where he has personally coached over 70 executives to make personal breakthroughs at work and at home. He is a valued guest speaker and contributor and has been featured in multiple publications, including at the UC Berkeley Hass School of Business, Harvard College in Asia Program, the Guardian, and the Washington Post, besides being recognized as Business Week's #4 "Top 24 Young Asian Entrepreneurs".
Leon spends his spare time coaching his 2 sons, preparing them to be the next generation of productivity gurus.
