| Yanjaa | |
| Birth Place: | Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia |
| Occupation: | Comedian, television personality, memory expert |
Yänjaa Westgate, sometimes simply Yanjaa,[1] [2] is a New York-based Swedish-Mongolian memory champion, comedian, and television personality.[3] She first gained international recognition for her achievements in memory sports before expanding into entertainment, appearing on numerous television shows, documentaries and performing stand-up and sketch comedy.[4]
Born in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia with primarily Indigenous Siberian Buryat descent, Yanjaa grew up across multiple cultures. Her international upbringing included time on the Mongolian steppe, Stockholm, Tokyo, and Kenya, where she attended the Swedish School of Nairobi.[5] She graduated from Stockholm Business School with a degree in Business and Economics.[6]
Yanjaa was originally inspired to compete after reading Moonwalking with Einstein by American author Joshua Foer, having discovered memory techniques while struggling with her university studies. Within her first year of memory training, she won team gold and first place in names and faces at the World Memory Championships.[7] She achieved the title of International Grandmaster of Memory, becoming one of only 22 people to hold this distinction.[8] Her most notable achievements include breaking three world records: memorizing 212 names and faces in 15 minutes (2017), 360 random images in 5 minutes (2018), and 145 random words in 5 minutes (2018).[7] Together with Mongolian teammate Munkhshur Narmandakh, they became the first women in history to place at the world event, securing bronze and silver positions respectively out of over 130 contestants. In 2016, she was invited as one of the top 200 Leaders of Tomorrow at the 46th St. Gallen Symposium in St. Gallen, Switzerland for her achievements in memory sports.[9]
Yanjaa gained mainstream attention in 2017 when she became the "IKEA Human Catalogue," memorizing the entire 328-page catalogue in one week. The campaign garnered international media attention with press conferences in Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, won both the people's voice and jury's Webby Award for best social media campaign in 2018.[10]
She has since appeared in several notable productions, including Netflix's The Mind, Explained (2019), a limited series narrated by Emma Stone, and HBO's How to with John Wilson (2020).[11] Her documentary Memory Games (2018) premiered to a sold-out audience in New York before being acquired by Netflix. Her expertise in memory training and language learning has been featured in Today, The Guardian, and Wired, among other international publications.[12]
In 2020, Yanjaa hosted "Minnet", a Spotify-exclusive podcast exploring memory techniques with celebrity guests. She later transitioned into comedy, performing at venues across North America and Europe and winning several comedy competitions.[13] In 2024, she joined IFS - invandrare för svenskar (IFS - Immigrants for Swedes), a prominent comedy panel show on Sweden's national broadcaster SVT.[14]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | IFS - invandrare för svenskar | Self - Comedian | SVT, TV Series, Panelist | |
| 2023 | Superihmiset - piilotettua kykyä etsimässä | Self - Memory Coach | YLE, TV Series[15] | |
| 2020 | How to with John Wilson | Self | HBO, TV Series | |
| 2019 | The Mind, Explained | Self - Memory Champion | Netflix, TV Series | |
| 2019 | Smartare än en femteklassare | Self - Contestant | TV Series | |
| 2018 | Memory Games | Self | Netflix documentary | |
| 2017–2018 | Pickler & Ben | Self | TV Series, 3 episodes | |
| 2017–2018 | Steve | Self - Memory Expert | TV Series, 2 episodes | |
| 2017 | The Brain | Self - Contestant | Chinese TV Series | |
| 2017 | Talang | Self - Golden Buzzer Recipient, Finalist | TV Series, 3 episodes | |
| 2016 | How to Remember Everything | Self | ITV documentary[16] | |
| 2015 | Masterminds | Self | SVT documentary |
As of 2018, Yanjaa holds three world records in memory sports: