Press kit

Yanjaa Westgate is an International Grandmaster of Memory who broke three world records in competitive memory and ranked seventh in the world. Born in Ulaanbaatar and raised in Stockholm, she has appeared on Netflix’s Memory Games and The Mind, Explained and NBC’s Steve, and won the Golden Buzzer on Sweden’s Got Talent. She is a learning coach based in New York City.

Yanjaa Westgate is an International Grandmaster of Memory, a learning coach and a speaker based in New York City. Born in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, she grew up in Stockholm and finished school in Nairobi, and nearly failed high school along the way. Nobody had taught her that memory is a skill you build with techniques, so she taught herself. With memory techniques she graduated from business school in Stockholm two years early.

In competitive memory she broke three world records: 212 names and faces in 15 minutes, random images in 5 minutes recalled in order, and 145 random words in 5 minutes. She ranked seventh in the world, placed third overall at the World Memory Championships, and was the first woman on a winning team there, with Team Sweden and then Team Mongolia. She holds the sport’s highest title, International Grandmaster of Memory, which about 22 people had earned at the time.

She has appeared on Netflix’s Memory Games and The Mind, Explained, NBC’s Steve with Steve Harvey, HBO’s How to with John Wilson, CBS and CNN, and in The New York Times. She won the Golden Buzzer on Talang, Sweden’s Got Talent, and the 3,000 faces challenge on China’s The Superbrain. She memorised the entire 328-page IKEA catalogue in a week, which won a Webby Award, and memorises a shuffled deck of cards in 22 seconds.

She has taught memory techniques since the mid-2010s, reaching millions through television, stages and classrooms. Hundreds of Mongolian kids have taken up memory sports since she started competing. She loves teaching the techniques behind the records, on stage and beyond it, so people have more fun with learning and get into their dream schools and jobs. She now lives her dream life in New York City, performing stand-up and sketch comedy across the city and at festivals around the world.