The ‘iron woman’ at FPT Retail

Nguyen Bach Diep, born in 1972, joined FPT, the largest Vietnamese IT corporation, in 1997, and quickly became one of the corporation’s important leaders at FPT which has been unceasingly expanding since its establishment. Since 2017, Diep has been working as chair of the board of directors of FPT Retail (FRT).

Diep was once honored by Forbes Asia as one of 25 most influential businesswomen in Asia in 2020 (Asia’s Power Businesswomen).

In 2022, the Long Chau drugstore chain, belonging to FRT, gained impressive business results: with 1,000 drug stores opened, 5 million clients a month, 2.5 million clients shopping online a month, and 2 million FPT Long Chau app users after one year of establishment.

At a shareholders’ meeting, FRT approved a plan to obtain revenue of VND34 trillion, up by 13 percent, and pre-tax profit of VND240 billion, down 51 percent compared with 2022.

In 2022, despite difficult conditions, FRT still obtained a high revenue growth rate with the accumulated consolidated revenue totalling VND30.166 trillion, up 34 percent compared with the same period of the year before. Of this, FPTShop had revenue of VND20.689 trillion, up 11 percent, and Long Chau drug store chain VND9.596 trillion, up 2.4 times over 2021.

FRT plans to obtain VND486 billion in consolidated pre-tax profit, down 12 percent compared with 2021. 

Diep and members of the board of directors and supervisory board did not receive remuneration as per the resolution approved at the 2022 annual shareholder’s meeting.

The talented woman at Vingroup

Tran Mai Hoa, born in 1974, is CEO of Vincom Retail (VRE). She joined VRE in 2014 as director of the Vincom Mega Mall Times City and Vincom Mega Royal City Project Board Management and became deputy CEO in the same year. Two years later, she was officially appointed to the post of CEO of Vincom Retail.

Under Hoa’s management, in 2022, Vincom Retail’s revenue reached VND7.309 trillion, up 24 percent over 2021 and post-tax profit VND2.736 trillion, double the year before. As of the end of the first quarter of 2023, the net consolidated revenue had reached VND1.943 trillion, up 42 percent over the same period last year.

As such, Vincom Retail got VND1.024 trillion in post-tax profit and an impressive growth rate of 171 percent over the first quarter 2022, and 23 percent over the fourth quarter in the same year.

With good business results, Hoa received VND11.7 billion in pay and remuneration for 2022, which means that Vincom Retail paid her VND976 million each month in 2022.

The powerful businesswoman at VinaCapital

As CEO of the securities and bond investment fund, Nguyen Hoai Thu manages and supervises the investments of open-ended funds and entrusted investment portfolios of VinaCapital.

At VinaCapital, Thu plays a decisive role in shaping and developing open-ended fund products in accordance with international standards.

Thu has 18 years of experience about the Asian capital market, including working in investment bank (DBS Bank – Singapore) and investment fund management (DBS Asset Management) and BankInvest (Denmark).

Thu is also well known as CEO and Investment Director of Vietnam Asset Management Ltd, a company specializing in managing open-ended funds in the Vietnamese stock market.

Thu has a bachelor’s degree in business administration granted by the Singaporean National University and CFA (chartered financial analyst).

VinaCapital’s March 2023 report showed that the fund’s profit increased by 0.5 percent and profit in the first quarter of the year rose by 1.6 percent.

Manh Ha