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COVER STORY

With extensive experience in other Asia-
Pacific markets before being appointed to
her current job in early 2019, Ms. Wong has
led the company in Vietnam to success. “Our
operations continue as normal, supported by
a resilient core infrastructure and compre-
hensive business continuity plans,” she said.
“We continue to tap into our insights and
capabilities to provide real-time responses
and adaptability to protect businesses and
their customers against increased cyber risks
and fraud threats, while also using enhanced
analytics and testing and learning capabilities
to ensure our ideas and solutions are working
as hard as they can for our clients.”
Many Vietnamese businesswomen came
through the pandemic quite well. In the
startup community, Ms. Le Hoang Uyen Vy
left ESP Capital and partnered with Mr.
Nguyen Manh Dung from CyberAgent Ven-
tures in co-founding Do Ventures in 2020.
Despite major challenges from Covid-19, Do
Ventures still announced the first closing of
its $50-million fund last September, which
was backed by notable institutional investors
PHOTO: VIET TUAN
in Asia. Soon afterwards, it closed two invest-
ment deals in two promising companies.
Staying the course farmers to bypass traditional intermediaries
The first, F99, is a platform that enables
to sell fruit directly to consumers, while the
second is Palexy, a computer vision and artificial
Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, intelligence (AI) tech company that offers
women entrepreneurs in Vietnam have continued to advanced in-store customer analytics for phys-
make admirable progress overall in navigating their ical retailers. The commonality between these
businesses towards success. two startups is their ability to thrive amid the
impact of Covid-19. “As investors, we see the
T HONG NHUNG REPORTS pandemic as a filter that will bring to light
highly capable entrepreneurs who can quickly
react to changes,” Ms. Vy told VET. “Do Ven-
tures was founded at the right time to provide
fundamental support to local startups during
this challenging period.”
omen across the world have been businesses is rising. Covid-19 has demonstrated Covid-19 has been a “black swan” event
disproportionally impacted by the that women leaders tend to take a broader that could collapse an entire economy, accord-
W Covid-19 pandemic, with a stag- view beyond economic results, are more risk ing to Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, CEO of edu-
gering 87 per cent of women business owners averse, and are compassionate when it comes cational startup MindX. It was a struggle
saying they were adversely affected, according to protecting human lives over economic when the pandemic put stress on everything
to the 2020 Mastercard Index of Women Entre- matters. Women are also usually more empa- in April last year, and she even considered
preneurs (MIWE). Women-led enterprises in thetic in their approach to leadership. the worst-case scenario of closing the business
Vietnam have also had to go into survival Nevertheless, 2020 was an unprecedented down. “We stepped into a battle where we
mode, but many in the country have been and challenging year for every individual, had to fight for survival,” she explained. “But
doing whatever is required to address the sit- business, and economy, and especially for a ‘black swan’ event can be seen as an oppor-
uation and take advantage of the few oppor- vulnerable women-owned enterprises. How- tunity for the world to change or see break-
tunities present in the market to navigate their ever, Ms. Winnie Wong, Country Manager of throughs in human society and economies.”
business through the challenges and remain Mastercard for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, MindX decided to transform a threat into
optimistic about future economic recovery. said it was also a year that brought many an opportunity and create new products and
opportunities to organizations like Mastercard new models and change the corporate culture
Road to recovery to evolve its innovative capabilities, increase and structure. “Despite Covid-19, we still
Vietnam is among emerging markets in cooperation, and further support governments’ doubled our outlet numbers last year against
Southeast Asia seeing positive progress made cashless agendas. Mastercard’s digital first 2019, expanded the online education segment,
in gender diversity, with the number of women approach combined with principles of design- and launched certain products for the first
leaders rising solidly in recent years, according thinking, allowed it to be more agile to enable time in Vietnam,” she said. “We have also
to Ms. Valerie Teo, Deputy General Director its employees, partners, communities, and drastically transformed management tools,
of Grant Thornton Vietnam. Their represen- customers to be resilient during the pandemic and brought data-driven thinking into com-
tation in senior management positions in and to now recover from it. prehensive administration.”

14 | VIETNAM ECONOMIC TIMES | MARCH 2021