Explore every episode of the podcast Overseas Vietnamese
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| From Hanoi to Big Tech Singapore – Alice Nguyen | 19 Oct 2024 | 00:45:52 | |
Alice Nguyen is an Account Manager at Meta. Alice grew up in Vietnam, studied in the US, and now lives in Singapore. She has also been leading the OV Singapore chapter. In our conversation, we cover: Podcast is brought to you by Overseas Vietnamese (OV) – the global community for Vietnamese professionals. — Connect with Alice Nguyen: Connect with Quang Do: — You can connect and chat directly with Alice and Quang if you join the OV Fellowship. | |||
| From Viet Adoptee to Top of Wall Street – Mark Erickson | 11 Aug 2024 | 00:35:11 | |
Mark Erickson is a Vietnamese adoptee, currently Managing Partner at BlackRock, formerly at Goldman Sachs and other financial institutions, and holds a BA from Harvard University. In our conversation, we cover: Podcast is brought to you by Overseas Vietnamese (OV) – the global community for Vietnamese professionals. — Connect with Mark Erickson: Connect with Quang Do: You can connect and chat directly with Mark and Quang if you join the OV Fellowship. Learn more at ovfellow.com | |||
| From Vietnam to Ivy League, Goldman & Silicon Valley – Nhat Nguyen | 05 Aug 2024 | 00:35:26 | |
Nhat Nguyen is Chief of Staff at Convai, an AI startup. Nhat grew up in Vietnam, moved to the US for college, holds a dual master degree from Harvard and MIT and has worked in finance for Goldman Sachs before moving to the Bay Area and into tech. In our conversation, we cover: Podcast is brought to you by Overseas Vietnamese (OV) – the global community for Vietnamese professionals. — Connect with Nhat Nguyen: Connect with Quang Do: You can connect and chat directly with Nhat and Quang by joining the Overseas Vietnamese community. Learn more at ovfellow.com | |||
| From Harvard Business School to Vietnam Startup – Robert Huynh | 25 Jul 2024 | 00:38:32 | |
Robert Huynh is the co-founder & CEO of Reforge Labs based out of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Robert grew up in the US, worked for Microsoft and Google, and dropped out of Harvard Business School to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams in Vietnam. In our conversation, we cover: Podcast is brought to you by Overseas Vietnamese (OV) – the global community for Vietnamese professionals. — Connect with Robert Huynh: Connect with Quang Do: You can connect and chat directly with Nhat and Quang by joining the Overseas Vietnamese community. Learn more at ovfellow.com | |||
| From Harvard, BCG to Vietnam CEO – Lan Doan | 28 Oct 2024 | 00:39:30 | |
Lan Doan is the Founder of Asla. She grew up in Vietnam, went to the U.S. to study—including completing her MBA at Harvard Business School—returned to Vietnam to work as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, and eventually became the Chief Executive Officer of Taptap, one of Vietnam’s leading engagement and loyalty platforms. In our conversation, we cover: Podcast is brought to you by Overseas Vietnamese (OV) – the global community for Vietnamese professionals. — Connect with Lan Doan: Connect with Quang Do: | |||
| From TikTok to Bank CEO – Khanh P. Ngo | 19 Mar 2025 | 01:15:21 | |
Overseas Vietnamese (OV) is a private network for Vietnamese professionals, entrepreneurs & leaders worldwide. You us at joinov.com ---- In OV Career Stories, we share about the lives & careers of our members. This week, we chatted with Khanh P. Ngo—Chief Executive Officer at Liobank. In this conversation, Quang interviews Khang about his personal and professional journey, focusing on his experiences in networking, career transitions, and leadership. Khang shares insights on the importance of relationships in Vietnam, the challenges of moving from consulting to roles in tech and banking, and his approach to leadership and team dynamics. The discussion also touches on the unique strategies of Liobank in the competitive banking landscape. ---- Connect with Khanh P. Ngo: Connect with Quang Do: Join OV: | |||
| Journey To BCG: A Personal Story – Kieu My Dang | 05 Feb 2025 | 00:49:00 | |
Overseas Vietnamese (OV) is a private network for Vietnamese professionals, entrepreneurs & leaders worldwide. You us at joinov.com ---- In OV Career Stories, we share about the lives and careers of our members. This week, we chatted with Kieu My Dang—Consultant at Boston Consulting Group. In this conversation, Kieu-My shares her multicultural background, navigating her identity as a Vietnamese immigrant in Switzerland and France. She discusses the challenges of transitioning between cultures, the influence of her parents on her education and career choices, and her journey into the competitive world of consulting at BCG. Kieu-My reflects on her experiences with imposter syndrome, the intensity of her work environment, and her ongoing efforts to build confidence in her professional life. In this conversation, Kieu-My shares her journey of self-discovery, coping with imposter syndrome, and the importance of coaching. She discusses her emotional coping mechanisms, the structure of her daily life, and the lessons learned from her experiences. Kieu-My emphasizes the significance of work-life balance, reflection, and self-confidence, especially for women in demanding careers. She also shares her future aspirations, including a desire to move back to Vietnam and invest in her creative projects. ---- Connect with Kieu My Dang: Connect with Quang Do: Join OV: | |||
| Viet American entrepreneur building in Saigon – Tuan Le | 23 Dec 2024 | 00:57:20 | |
Overseas Vietnamese (OV) is a private network for Vietnamese professionals worldwide. You us at joinov.com ---- In the OV Career Stories podcast series, we share about the lives of some of our remarkable members. This week, we chatted with Tuan Le—Co-founder & CEO of The Lab Saigon. In this conversation, Tuan shares his journey across cultures—from Vietnam to the US, Dubai, and back—highlighting his artistic development, entrepreneurial ventures, and family influences. He discusses reconnecting with his roots, the challenges of launching a co-working cafe and design studio in Vietnam, and lessons on adapting to local markets. Tuan delves into navigating Vietnam’s competitive F&B and design industries, talent acquisition, and staying attuned to consumer trends and pop culture. Balancing family life with business growth, his story offers valuable insights into identity, culture, and entrepreneurship. ---- Connect with Tuan Le: Connect with Quang Do: Join OV: | |||
| Leaving Big Tech for Belonging: Mai Vo’s Journey Creating Podium | 17 Sep 2025 | 00:36:00 | |
Mai Vo left Big Tech to solve a problem she lived: modern women navigating big life and career transitions without a trusted peer group. She founded Podium, a connection platform that brings small, curated circles together in person—so women can find support, clarity, and momentum. We talk about the reality behind “glorified entrepreneurship,” why she did 65 unscalable events to build a playbook, what community impact actually looks like, and how Vietnamese heritage and operating in Vietnam/Singapore shaped her leadership. Mai Vo is the Co-founder & CEO of Podium, a platform for modern women (late 20s–40s) to find peer support through curated dinners, intimate groups, and retreats. Previously, she worked at Google (London → Singapore) after starting her career at Samsung. - We discuss: 00:31 Who is Mai? German-born Vietnamese across cultures - Connect with Mai: Connect with Quang: Join OV: https://joinov.com | |||
| Becoming Tech Entrepreneur As Medical Doctor – Kevin Huynh | 07 Aug 2025 | 00:53:40 | |
Kevin Huynh is the co‑founder and CEO of PiKNiK & Company, where he leads the development of boutique cloud computing services built on open‑source storage protocols. With a background in medicine, management consulting, and venture investing, Kevin combines deep technical expertise with strategic insights. Under his leadership, PiKNiK is working to decentralize and democratize data for businesses and individuals worldwide. In this episode, we dive into his entrepreneurial journey, lessons from consulting to tech entrepreneurship, and what drives him as an overseas Vietnamese founder. | |||
| Vietnam Can Build Deeptech: Quoc Luong’s Journey | 09 Dec 2025 | 01:01:48 | |
Quoc Luong grew up scavenging for food on the streets of Saigon – and went on to become one of Vietnam’s most accomplished deep-tech founders. After teaching himself English at 26, he earned scholarships to Cornell and UC Berkeley, built a life in Silicon Valley, and ultimately returned to Vietnam to found Realtime Robotics (RtR): the country’s first high-tech drone company to invent, design, and manufacture world-class UAV systems. Today RtR drones are used in commercial operations across the U.S. and even by U.S. Army units. Quoc shares how he built a 70-person engineering organization in Saigon, why Vietnamese engineers can compete with the best in the world, and how Vietnam can become a global deep-tech nation through conviction, invention, and doing more with less. We talk about his early life, the discipline forged in hardship, what PhD training taught him about thinking deeply, the long road from copying to inventing, and why he believes Vietnamese talent can build globally dominant hardware companies. - 01:22 Introducing himself & the moment he says “I’m doing drones” - Connect with Quoc: Connect with Quang: Join OV: https://joinov.com | |||
| From Harvard MBA to Vietnamese Nail Salons | 05 Dec 2025 | 01:06:43 | |
Truc Nguyen left a high-achieving path — JP Morgan, HP, Deloitte, Harvard MBA — to pursue a very different ambition: buying and operating small businesses. What started as a career reset turned into a deep exploration of Vietnamese-American entrepreneurship and the power of rolling up service businesses the right way. She shares how she evaluated which industry to pursue, why she focused on Vietnamese-owned nail salons, what people underestimate about SMB acquisitions, and how she rebuilt operations, culture, and processes from scratch. Her story blends corporate discipline with immigrant grit — and shows how business ownership can become a path to autonomy and long-term impact. We discuss search, buying your first company, managing older teams, building systems, learning humility, and how Truc thinks about the next decade of acquisitions, leadership, and eventually returning to Vietnam. - 01:38 Harvard Business School & career reset - Connect with Truc: Connect with Quang: Join OV: https://joinov.com | |||
| Hardship as Training: Vincent Vu’s Lessons on Grit & Problem-Solving | 26 Nov 2025 | 01:09:14 | |
Vincent Vu’s journey is extraordinary. From escaping Vietnam by boat at age seven and spending six years in a refugee camp, to immigrating to the U.S., rebuilding his life from nothing, and eventually becoming an engineer leading global teams across the world. After three failed startups, Vincent founded Kinis AI, a movement-intelligence platform using balance, gait, and motion analysis to prevent falls for aging populations. His story is a masterclass in grit, reinvention, and solving real human problems. We talk about hardship as training, why curiosity beats expertise, what barefoot marathons taught him about mindset, and what returning overseas Vietnamese need to know about building in Vietnam. - We discuss: 02:10 Growing up in a refugee camp - Connect with Vincent: Connect with Quang: Join OV: https://joinov.com | |||
| Vietnam Is Underrated: Stephen Turban on Building Globally From Saigon | 17 Nov 2025 | 01:16:28 | |
Stephen Turban shares why Vietnam became one of the most meaningful chapters of his life – and why he chose Saigon as the base to build Lumiere, an 8-figure global education company. We talk about the advantages he found in Vietnam, what he learned building globally from Asia, the talent he discovered here and the identity shift that comes from committing to a place far from home. Stephen Turban is the co-founder of Lumiere, a global education platform that helps thousands of students conduct research with PhDs. He studied at Harvard, worked at McKinsey, learned Vietnamese, performs stand-up comedy in Saigon and has spent years building and living in Vietnam. - We discuss: 04:45 Failing 40 interviews and “no one cares about you” - Connect with Stephen: Connect with Quang: Join OV: https://joinov.com | |||
| From Cambridge to Saigon: Linh Pham on Building Vietnam’s Uber for Trucks | 12 Nov 2025 | 01:10:47 | |
Linh Pham left a career at Goldman Sachs in London to return to Vietnam and build LOGIVAN, a trucking marketplace often called the “Uber for Trucks.” Her company has raised over $8 million USD and connects more than 20,000 truck drivers and companies nationwide. We discuss Linh’s journey from Cambridge to Saigon, what she learned building in Vietnam’s opaque logistics market, and how she’s now combining logistics and AI with her new startup, FreightPilot.AI. Linh Pham is the Founder and CEO of LOGIVAN and FreightPilot.AI, two technology ventures transforming Vietnam’s logistics and supply chain. A Cambridge graduate and former Goldman Sachs analyst, Linh returned home to build where few dared — in Vietnam’s most traditional and challenging industry. - We discuss: 02:00 Why she left Goldman Sachs for Vietnam - Connect with Linh: Connect with Quang: Join OV: https://joinov.com | |||
| How Hao Tran Built Vietcetera – Lessons on Starting from Zero in Vietnam | 04 Nov 2025 | 01:14:39 | |
Hao Tran shares his journey from the Bay Area to Saigon – and how being laid off in Silicon Valley led him to co-found Vietcetera, now one of Vietnam’s most influential media companies. We talk about how Vietnam has changed in the past decade, what it takes for overseas Vietnamese to thrive when they return, and what Hao has learned from building a 70-person media business in a fast-evolving country. Hao Tran is the Co-founder & CEO of Vietcetera, a leading media network founded in 2016 with the mission to bring Vietnam to the world and the world to Vietnam. Hao is also an angel investor and advisor to businesses and family offices across Southeast Asia. - We discuss: 00:00 Intro - Connect with Hao: Connect with Quang: Join OV: https://joinov.com | |||
| From Debt to Exit: Francois Le Nguyen on Redefining Success and Returning to Vietnam | 10 Oct 2025 | 01:12:06 | |
Francois “Frankie” Le Nguyen opens up about his unlikely path — from a teenage entrepreneur in debt to building and selling a cybersecurity startup, investing in 50 companies, and ultimately returning home to Vietnam. We discuss the ambition that drove him, the failures that shaped him, and how success and identity evolve when you reconnect with your roots. Francois Le Nguyen is a Vietnamese-Canadian founder, investor, and former General Manager at Entrepreneur First in Singapore and Toronto. He has backed and built dozens of startups globally and now calls Saigon home, where he’s helping bridge Vietnam with the world through initiatives like OV Ventures. - We discuss: 00:00 Intro — $20K debt at 17 and lessons on failure - Connect with Francois: Connect with Quang: Join OV: https://joinov.com | |||