Webinar 1: Vietnam’s political landscape and bilateral relationship with Singapore
Ms. Thai Thu Phuong is the Investment Counselor of the Vietnam Embassy in Singapore. Based in Singapore, she is in charge of the investment promotional initiatives to promote foreign direct investment from Singapore to Vietnam; supporting Vietnamese companies investing in Singapore; and other tasks as assigned by the Ambassador to strengthen the economic relation between the two countries.
Before being posted to Singapore, Phuong has had over 13 years (including 9 years as Deputy Director of the Investment Promotion Division) working in the Foreign Investment Agency of the Ministry of Planning and Investment of Vietnam, which performs, among others, the function of a National Investment Promotion Agency for Vietnam. She was then in charge of promoting FDI inflows from Japan, Korea, Europe and ASEAN to Vietnam. She was member of the researcher teams for a number of researches including those on “Regional Inter-dependence and Vietnam – Korea Economic Relationship” (2016), “Inter-regional linkage for FDI promotion in Central Vietnam” (2009) and the “Proposed Structure and Operation Mechanism for FDI Management Agencies as Vietnam joins the WTO” (2008) and a member of the Drafting Team of the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Circular on “FDI monitoring and investigation” (2016).
She holds a Master of Public Policy in Australia from the University of Sydney and a Bachelor’s Degree in Foreign Trade Economics from the Hanoi Foreign Trade University.
Webinar 2: The Vietnamese way: What you need to know about the social-cultural environments
Mr. Danny Võ has more than 15 years of experience undertaking various key positions, directly connected with executives from both domestic and foreign Enterprises and Corporations; 9+ years in which as a Training Expert for the Arts of Communication for leaders and managers. Member of Asia Professional Speakers- Singapore (APSS); Vice President of Business Association of Overseas Vietnamese (BAOOV) – an important bridge among Businessmen and Entrepreneurs living and doing business in countries and territories around the world. Danny received the Young Creative Entrepreneur Award (YCEA) from the British Council (UK) for his contribution to the Vietnamese startup wave.
Webinar 3: Vietnam’s economic growth: why Vietnam is an attractive market for foreign business
Since 2013, Mr. Tran Hung Thien has entered Market Research and quickly developed as an Associate Director in a leading international research firm.
He advanced as one of the most experienced researchers on retail measurement methods, buyer studies, Quantitative and Qualitative research projects – especially for focus group discussion (FGD) and in-depth interviews (1-1). Mr. Thien also practiced leadership for three years at Operation Head – he has successfully managed a team of over 100 people through the functions of Statistics, Fieldwork, Quality Control, Human Resources, Data Processing, and Analysis.
Mr. Thien founded GCOMM in 2011. The company has flourished to one of the most prominent market research firms in Vietnam under its strong leadership. In particular, GCOMM strictly requires high quality of the output in operation to provide great insight for customers. The long-standing customers of GCOMM include Unilever, Masan, Vascara, Mobifone, …etc.
Furthermore, he also serves as an active social activist and devotes plenty of time to community activities such as the UEH Mentoring program, charity fundraising as well as career and soft-skill seminars for young people.
Webinar 4: Leading the technology frontier: insights from one of the largest private sector companies in Vietnam
Associate Professor Pham Ngoc Nam is the Vice Dean of College of Engineering and Computer Science, VinUniversity, Vingroup and also a visiting scholar at Cornell University. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST) in 1997 and his M.S. in Artificial Intelligence and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from KU Leuven, Belgium in 1999 and 2004 respectively. His research interests include Artificial Intelligence, QoS/QoE management for multimedia applications, reconfigurable computing and low-power embedded system design. He is the author, co-author of 100 scientific articles including more than 30 ISI and Scopus publications. He has been the PI of 1 key national project, 3 ministerial-level projects and a key member in four other national projects.
Prior to joining VinUni, he was with Hanoi University of Science and Technology where he served as Vice Dean at School of Electronics and Telecommunications. With this position, he has gained a lot of experience in CDIO based curriculum development and AUN-QA quality assessment at program level. He attended various trainings, both at home and abroad, on curriculum development and accreditation, quality assurance, higher education leadership development, active teaching/learning. He was a visiting professor at the University of Aizu, Japan in 2015, at Chulalongkon University, Thailand in 2013, and at University of Wisconsin at Madison, USA in 2009.
Webinar 5: Vietnam Global Innovation: Accelerating access to Southeast Asia’s hottest economy
Ms. Michelle Ng is Senior Associate at Quest Ventures, a top venture capital fund in Asia. She works closely with startups to accelerate their growth through a combination of incubation services and programmes. She is also responsible for key markets in Southeast Asia and emerging Asia.
Prior to this, she was responsible for international startup ecosystem networks at the Action Community for Entrepreneurship – Singapore’s national entrepreneurship ecosystem builder – where she engaged startup communities in North Asia and Southeast Asia with market access and regional innovation initiatives, and in so doing anchored Singapore as Asia’s hub for entrepreneurship.
Before ACE, Ms. Michelle was at CNBC and Club Med in marketing and communications roles where, among other responsibilities, she rolled out the Asian Business Leaders Award in Bangkok, Thailand; and worked with international teams to roll out summits in locations such as Bali and Maldives.
Ms. Michelle is a key office bearer at the People’s Association Youth Network of Singapore, a grassroots organisation for community engagement; and Social Impact Catalyst, the largest non-profit organisation for young social entrepreneurs in Singapore.
Ms. Michelle has a BBA from Nanyang Technological University. For leisure, she enjoys travelling and reading.
Webinar 6: The rise of a start-up nation: ambition and governmental investment in Viet Nam start-up ecosystem
Ms. Mandy Nguyen has 7 years working experience in the Vietnam ecosystem as community builder, connector, program organizer. She developed intensive resources of in-country and international network of partners and friends firming 50+ ecosystem partners network.
Ms. Mandy is a key opinion leader advocating for entrepreneurial support and innovation ecosystem movement. Host, organize, co-develop more than 50+ events, workshops, seminars, tours in the theme of innovation and startup.
Ms. Mandy is well-connected to the regional and global ecosystem. She has organized and led tours to learn from the market in Singapore, Australia, Korea, Japan, Taiwan…etc. She is frequently invited to international summits to share about Vietnam startup scenarios and ecosystem maturity.
Her ability is to develop strategic plan and concept and implementation delivery with a result-oriented mindset. Seasoned expert in interventions design and project management.
She has a strong background in marketing, communication and event management with technology application knowledge.
Webinar 7: Investing in technologies that change the world
Mrs. Christy Le (Lê Diệp Kiều Trang) is Founder of Alabaster, a company that invests in founders building radical solutions for problems that can have a positive, planet-level impact.
Christy focuses on working with Vietnamese entrepreneurs and growing the startup ecosystem in Vietnam.
Previously, she served as CEO of Go-Viet, an affiliate of GOJEK Group, which is an on-demand multi-service platform providing a range of services including transportation, logistics, food delivery and payments.
Before Go-Viet, she served as Country Director for Vietnam at Facebook. In her role, she led the team to focus on driving greater value and support for businesses across a number of industries in Vietnam, including eCommerce, consumer goods and services, financial services, technology, and telecommunications.
Prior to Facebook, Christy was the Managing Director of Fossil Vietnam and VP of Operations of Fossil Group, which acquired Misfit for $260M in 2015. At Misfit, a Silicon Valley startup that developed and marketed a number of award-winning wearable and smart home technology products, she was the CFO and COO from the company’s founding until its acquisition. The company leveraged its R&D and operations teams in Vietnam, China and the US to quickly grow to be a global leader in wearables in less than three years. Prior to Misfit, she was a consultant at McKinsey and an investment banker at HSBC.
Christy graduated Double First in Economics at Oxford (BA & MPhil) and as a Valedictorian and a Legatum Fellow at MIT Sloan. She is passionate about her two kids, working with amazing teams, and engaging in projects that seek to maximize human potential.
Webinar 8: Insights from FPT, a Vietnam tech giant: the story of development into an MNC around the globe
Mr. Peter Duong Hoang Linh is a balanced IT professional with 11+ years of experience in developing IT solutions for Intelligent Transportation System (automotive navigation systems & data analysis platform).
He has worked at Quantum Inventions Pte. Ltd., Singapore, between 2008-2018 and at Klass Engineering & Solutions Pte. Ltd., Singapore, between 2018-2019. He has strong knowledge of software engineering, mathematics, embedded software optimization, statistics, big data analysis, computer graphics and Geo-Information System (GIS) systems.
He is also experienced in Agile Software Development (1 year training at Microsoft, Singapore, 2013)
His ability is to rapidly master new technology, very short learning curve and to lead a software team to deliver software product to market and deliver projects within deadlines while maintaining quality
Mr. Peter is highly organized, self-motivated and goal-oriented working manner, excellent interpersonal and team-building skills
