Overseas Vietnamese

Jim Nguyen is a Vietnamese-American serial entrepreneur and payments infrastructure builder who previously built and sold a company to PayPal, led digital business development at PayPal, started PayPal’s crypto team in 2013, and later helped scale OKCoin globally. Today, he is building Inflow, a new infrastructure layer for AI agents and agentic commerce. His thesis is simple but profound: AI agen...

Madame Tôn Nữ Thị Ninh is one of Vietnam’s most respected diplomats, intellectuals, and public thinkers. Over decades, she represented Vietnam on the global stage and played an important role in shaping the country’s diplomatic voice during its modern era. In this conversation, we talk about her extraordinary life journey, from growing up between Vietnam and France, to returning during wartime, en...

Bùi Kiến Thành is one of the most influential economic thinkers behind modern Vietnam. Over decades, he advised governments, institutions, and leaders on how Vietnam could move from scarcity to strength – not through ideology, but through pragmatic economic thinking. In this conversation, we talk about what actually built modern Vietnam: the shift toward markets, the role of private enterprise, th...

Will & Tina share how they met at an OV event in Saigon — and how a chance connection turned into a relationship, a shared life in Vietnam, and eventually a content-creator journey built on honesty and everyday moments. Will grew up in Germany and previously worked at Google. Tina spent eight years studying in the U.S. before returning to Vietnam to become a university lecturer. Together, they tal...

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...

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 Vietna...

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...

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 i...

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 com...

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 count...

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-Can...

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,...

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...

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 experien...

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 im...

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 h...

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: • Her experience moving from Vietn...

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: • Her experience moving to the US from Vietnam • Her way to joining Meta today • And more! Podcast is brought to you by Overseas Vietnamese (OV) – the global community for Vietnamese professionals. Jo...

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: • His long and successful career finance and Wall Street • What he has learned along the way • And more! Podcast is brought to you by Overseas Vietnamese (OV) – the global community for V...

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: • What coming to the US as a Vietnamese immigrant was like • Tips on how to think about and design your career • And more!...

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: • Why he left his prestigious jobs to become a Vietnam-based founder • The emotional rollercoaster of his journey • And much...