VietNamNet Bridge - They are successful businessmen who created strong brands with fame extending beyond national borders. Though they are of retirement age, they remain at the top of  the business leadership and are considered irreplaceable.

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FPT's Truong Gia Binh



At a gala evening held on the occasion of the birthday of FPT last September, the largest Vietnamese IT conglomerate, FPT’s staff sang a funny song with words urging Truong Gia Binh, FPT’s president, who has turned 60, to retire.

Binh and his co-workers set up FPT in 1988 with just 13 workers. Today, FPT employs 27,000 workers, operating in four major business fields, including technology, telecommunication, distribution & retail, and education. The conglomerate reported revenue of VND40 trillion in 2015.

Though the story about ‘power transfer’ at FPT has been mentioned in the last 10 years, as a technology firm, it is believed to need young leaders with daring innovations, but Binh is still the ‘soul’ and ‘captain’ of the conglomerate.

At the age of 63, Mai Kieu Lien is still in the post of general director of Vinamilk, the nation’s dairy producer. Prior to that, Lien was both chair of the board of management and general director of the enterprise in 2003-2015. She is the only Vietnamese among 50 most influential businesswomen recognized by Forbes.

They are successful businessmen who created strong brands with fame extending beyond national borders. Though they are of retirement age, they remain at the top of  the business leadership and are considered irreplaceable.
After 10 years of listing shares, Vinamilk’s revenue has increased by eight times from VND5.659 trillion in 2005 to VND40.223 trillion in 2015, while net profit has increased by 12 times from VND605 billion to VND7.77 trillion.

According to Nielsen, Vinamilk is leading the domestic liquid milk market with 50 percent of market share. Lien said Vinamilk is nurturing the hope to become one of the world’s 50 largest dairy production conglomerates by 2017.

Vu Thi Thuan, 60, became vice president and managing director of Traphaco in 2003, general director of Traphaco in 2011 and president of Traphaco in 2013.

The chairmanship has been eyed by SCIC, a big shareholder in Traphaco, for a long time. However, in Traphaco, Thuan is still considered the ‘soul’ of the company despite the presence of foreign shareholders and SCIC.

At the 2016 shareholders’ meeting, Thuan was once again reelected as the chair of Traphaco with 98.65 percent votes from shareholders. This showed shareholders’ confidence in Thuan who has been playing an important role in the development of the company.

Tran Thi Tu Huong is very well known in Vietnam as she still is doing business at the age of 80.

Two deals made Huong famous among the business circle. In early 1990s, She developed a brewery in Khanh Hoa province and later sold to San Miguel for $24 million. The deal brought profit of $5 million. She also transferred a factory in HCMC to Coca-Cola at $15 million. 


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