Prior to working in-house, Xiaoni worked in media during which she served as a senior editor/producer at CNN and director of programming at Sun TV, in addition to working as a reporter for multiple Chinese national media outlets earlier in her career. In her time in journalism she covered a variety of major international as well as China stories and had her work recognised with awards including a News & Documentary Emmy Award and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award. Xiaoni holds an MA in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and a BA from Renmin University of China.