Yang Lan started her journalism career in 1990 with a pioneering current-events TV program in China, Zheng Da, which became the nation's highest-rated program within the year, with 220 million regular viewers. She continued to create and host other groundbreaking shows, such as Yang Lan One on One. The popular Her Village, which now includes an online magazine and website, brings together China’s largest community of professional women (more than 200 million people a month).

Yang has a bachelor's degree from Beijing Foreign Studies University, and master's degree from Columbia University in New York.

With her husband, Wu Zheng (aka Bruno Wu), Yang Lan founded Sun Media Investment Holdings Ltd. The company publishes newspapers and magazines, and owns interests in Chinese language cable and satellite television channels, advertising agencies, Internet websites, music and entertainment, and multimedia education production companies. Sun Media Investment Holdings is now one of China’s most prominent private media groups.

In 2005, Yang founded the Sun Culture Foundation with a mission to promote the advancement of education and the building of philanthropic culture, as well as to raise awareness about poverty and to promote cross-cultural communication.

The Paley Center of Media (formerly the Museum of Television and Radio) honored her with the “She-Made-It” award in 2007 to recognize her achievement as a TV journalist, saying, "In her efforts to use media to share culture and enhance communication between the east and west, she stands out as a role model for women who want to achieve across the industry spectrum in an increasingly global society."

In 2008 Yang Lan served as an ambassador for the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Yang Lan's 2011 TED Talk: The Generation That's Remaking China