By day, Veronica Wu is a senior data engineering manager at Unilever. In December 2025, she also became the winner of Season 8 of MasterChef Canada, beating out a field that began with 15 home cooks — including fellow finalist and U of T Dentistry alum Liz Worndl.
Wu moved from China to Canada in 2014 to study financial modelling, with a minor in linguistics, at Western University. She had seriously considered leaving school for culinary training, but her parents encouraged her to stay the course.
I think people are interested in the story behind a plate of foodVeronica Wu
She completed Rotman's Master of Management Analytics in 2019 — marking the end of the program by baking her cohort a two-tiered matcha and chocolate cake — and joined Unilever as a data scientist that same year.
Her winning signature dish was braised pork belly with potato purée and pickled radish. Wu is now weighing staging, further culinary training and possibly opening a Chinese or Chinese-fusion restaurant, all while keeping her data job at Unilever.
Reported from From data to dicing: MasterChef Canada winner and alum Veronica Wu cooks up a mindset shift, by Meaghan MacSween (U of T Alumni News, March 10, 2026).
More from the original reporting: alumni.utoronto.ca/news/masterchef-canada-winner-and-alum-veronica-wu