Mai Kieu LienThis is the story about a woman who is well-known in Vietnam. She is Mai Kieu Lien, Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of Vinamilk Vietnam (the dairy company has biggest market share in Vietnam).
About Mai Kieu Lien’s early life, her home country is Vietnam but she was born in 1953 in Paris, France. In 1969, at the age of 17, CEO of Vinamilk was assigned to study dairy processing in Moscow, Russia. She recalled:” I did not have any concept about dairy fields and I used to want to reselect my major, it might be a teacher or a doctor as my childhood’s dream, because the dairy industry in Vietnam was still young”. However, her father believed that the dairy industry would help improve malnutrition of Vietnamese children after war. This useful advice helped Lien be consistent with her study. Back to Vietnam after graduation in 1976, Mai Kieu Lien worked as an engineer at Dairy-Café South Company (former of Vinamilk). After going through many positions in some companies such as technical engineer, director’s assistant, and technical deputy director in the period from 1980 to 1983, she decided to study economic management at Leningrad University – Russia. In 1992, Lien was promoted to CEO of Vinamilk. While she was managing the company, she concurrently held the position as Chairman of the Board of Directors from 2003. From that time on, she has been being one of the most important leaders and bringing a significant number of gains for the company. As for Mai Kieu Lien’s current life, although she has not been the Chairman of the Board of Directors from July, 2015 due to company reforms, but she is still Vinamilk’s CEO. The main reason why she is famous at her profession is that she is known as a pioneer of Vietnam dairy industry. In fact, nearly 90% of the new ideas of products come from Lien. She also contributes a considerable part in improving Vietnamese people health. When it comes to her awards, Mai Kieu Lien was ranked 35th on the list of Top 50 Influential Businesswomen in Asia by Forbes. Besides, she received 20th Nikkei Award for her contributions at the level of continents and worldwide in May 2015. Furthermore, in November this year, she was awarded by Prime Minister of New Zealand for her positive cooperations between two countries. According to CNBC, an economy and finance channel of America, they called CEO of Vinamilk a “Queen of Dairy Industry” or “Margaret Thatcher of Vietnam”. Bloomberg, a newspaper channel from the US, also claimed that the Vietnam war helped Mai Kieu Lien to hone her skills at the time when all men went to the army to protect the country. Talking about the things that young people can learn from Lien, she is a typical example of successful women for young adults, especially young girls. Mai Kieu Lien dared to think and to embark on her business, it was a real difficulty because at her time not many women were in leader positions. She may change the way people look at women in Vietnam because she tried really hard to reach her aims and she is now one of the most powerful businesswomen in Asia. Therefore, girls, in particular, can take her as a good instance to imitate or just learn her leadership skills. She just keeps doing her businesses and achieving more successes as well as contributing to society, there will be an increasing number of women follow her path. Here are some facts:
“Just nearly 7% of the leader chairs are taken by women in Vietnam, the second highest rate in South East Asian Countries, but Vietnamese women are believed to empower since they are very smart and persistent”, said Peter Ryder – CEO Indochina Capital.
According to a report on 2,360 companies of Credit Suisse Research Institute, the result shows that companies, which have one or more women leader, have the Return on Equity (ROE) above average. References:http://vietnamnet.vn/vn/kinh-doanh/273695/ba-mai-kieu-lien-nhan-giai-thuong-new-zealand-asean.html
http://nguyentandung.org/bao-my-vi-mai-kieu-lien-la-margaret-thatcher-viet-nam.html http://kinhdoanh.vnexpress.net/tin-tuc/doanh-nghiep/doanh-nhan-nu-kien-cuong-hon-nam-gioi-nho-chien-tranh-2971333.html http://dantri.com.vn/kinh-doanh/ceo-vinamilk-mai-kieu-lien-nhan-giai-thuong-danh-gia-nikkei-chau-a-1432807544.htm https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mai_Ki%E1%BB%81u_Li%C3%AAn |