Dr. Ababio is a chemical engineer by training and has worked for several oil and gas industry engineering, procurement, and management firms including but not limited to John Brown, Aker Kvaerner (now Aker Solutions), Jacobs Engineering, AMEC Oil & Gas, and Worley Parson, amongst others. With these companies, Yao was involved in project conceptualization and engineering design as a process engineer and project manager. Star projects included the gravity-based structure (GBS) that placed a concrete basin more than the size of the NRG Stadium storing LNG offshore Italy as a regasification facility to supply fuel to the European mainland.
Dr. Yao was also involved in the design of the Kearl Oil Sands project, which extracted synthetic oil from tar sands in the Athabasca area of Canada. In the last several years, has provided continuous improvement services in healthcare working with CHI Baylor St Luke’s Health as Performance Excellence Consultant. As a native of Ghana, Yao has played leadership roles in many Ghanaian and African organizations globally. These included presidential roles in the alumni organization of his alma mater, KNUST Alumni North America, Ghana Association of Houston, the Council of Ewe Associations in North America (CEANA), etc.
He also served on the Mayoral Advisory Board on International & Development (MABIAD) for the City of Houston, Texas. Dr. Yao initiated and chairs the Board of Mawuli Fund, Inc. a 501-C3 non‐profit organization whose purpose is to seek development and academic and infrastructural aid for secondary education. He served as the executive Treasurer on the Board of Progress-In-Education, Inc., a Charlotte, VA-based 501- C3 organization with the mission to improve the lives and futures of high school students in underserved communities.
Currently, Dr. Ababio chairs the Industrial Advisory Council for the Department of Chemical Engineering at Prairie View A&M University, one of the historically black universities in the US. Mr. Ababio has a PhD from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand after pursuing postgraduate study at the Technical University (RWTH), Aachen, Germany, and a BSc from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (KNUST), Ghana, all in chemical & process engineering. He also holds an MBA from the University of Houston. He is a project management professional (PMP), and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. Dr. Yao has senior membership of the America Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and has chaired its South Texas Section’s division on Minority Affairs in the past.
Dr. Yao holds two honorary awards and several publications, mostly in engineering and a few in healthcare to his credit. Dr. Ababio currently serves as the Chief Information Technology Officer for a not-for-profit healthcare enterprise in Texas.