That is the viewpoint of Mrs. Le Hong Thuy Tien – IPPG CEO at Global Summit of Women 2018 Sydney, Australia at April, 2018.

Mrs. Thuy Tien was known as the pioneer of Vietnam’s retail business, started with Mien Dong Supermarket which was Vietnam’s first and largest multi-product supermarket in 1995. She was also the only women in the Board of Directors full of men and easily received glances full of doubts from them. "I remember back in the days when it was never easy to ignore the looks full of prejudice & doubt for a woman to take on business road. I was NOT an exception at that time. But there is just one thing they could not take away from me is the persistence I have for what I do.” – said Mrs. Thuy Tien

Passion + Persistence = Success

According to her, the key to success in business consists of: calmness, persistence, education, diligence, resilience and understanding rules & regulations of the business’s industry. In addition, success needs not only self-awareness of self-strengths & self-weaknesses but also courage to learn from failures and accept to change. Mrs. Thuy Tien has held a firm belief that independence in finance set people free to make any decision that they want in pursuing their passions.

Mrs. Thuy Tien (second from the right) as a speaker in Global Summit of Women 2018 Sydney, Australia at April, 2018.

As mentioned by Mrs. Thuy Tien, corporates cannot exist without customers. To win new customers and keep current customers, IPPG has implemented a customer-focused strategy as IPPG’s customer database ranges from different classes in accordance with diversified products that IPPG has offered. “Nowadays, customers have obviously expressed their demands and asked for the best-quality service more than ever. That’s why, bringing the best experience to the customers really matters as this both answers what they are looking for and helps corporates perform sustainably.

Consumer behaviors can change rapidly, especially in retail industry and fashion industry that IPPG has to change to be adapt to Gen X (born from 1964 to 1980), gen Y (millennials) and gen Z (the most tech-savvy generation). Each generation has different tendencies & behaviors. To be able to compete in the market, IPPG never stops trying to understand customers’ behaviors and tastes by doing data-research so that IPPG could make important decision in adapting to what customers need.

She also shared: “As a business women, I have realized that following dreams to build up a business group is a hard work which is full of challenges but worth to fight for. It needs a lot of commitment, self-discipline, persistence and passion. The role of leaders is to inspire, to stimulate staff to get involved in a strong strategic connection of the whole group to achieve business goals but the connection is still flexible enough to adapt quickly to new strategy if needed to make sure of competitiveness and survival of the business. The most important thing to me is that life is series of lessons and we all have to learn and never stop learning.”

Enhancing gender equality

With the aim to support who needs support in a sustainable way so that they could create their future, IPPG and government charitable organizations have been focused on social activities which provide education for underprivileged women and children in remote areas and helped them with finance & economic orientation and education. Being financially independent is the key to help women to overcome all their inferiority and escape from their cover. As a result, they can fully prepare to step out and integrate into the world. The concept of "Male chauvinism" deep-rooted for a long time must be changed radically. Starting from the family, sympathy and support from the husband and father significantly enhance the role of women in social and economy.

IPPG CEO with Vietnamese students in Australia

IPPG has never stopped stimulating gender equality at working environment to create inspiring workplace for women to express their talents as well as recognizing and honoring them, and encouraging women to join groups or unions to exchange and update latest knowledge.

Besides, IPPG Chairman – Mr. Johnathan Hanh Nguyen has had speeches about doing business at universities to inspire and share his experience of how to start-up as a student or a fresh-graduate to potential youngsters. Also, he always encourages young people to contribute good values to society by doing business in the future.

Mrs. Thuy Tien emphasizes that: “Doing business and developing business sustainably require many factors including calmness, persistence, passion and learning from failures. Choosing business strategy is highly important and long-term investment creates sustainable business. Even though this plan will not bring much benefit at this time but it allows us to be a market-leader in a long run”.

Mrs. Thuy Tien and the female leaders as Vietnamese representatives at the event

Global Summit of Women 2018 Sydney, Australia happened in Sydney from 26th – 28th of April, 2018 with the theme “Creating economies of shared values”. 1250 delegates including leaders, ministers, CEOs of big corporations as well as women organizations’ representatives from 65 countries over the World have joined. The leader of 80 Vietnamese delegates was Mrs. Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh, Vice Minister of Vietnam. In the afternoon of April 27th, at the session “Enhancing Women in Business”, CEO of IPPG – Mrs. Le Hong Thuy Tien was giving a speech with 4 outstanding women leaders: Mrs. Denise Evans - Vice President, Women & Diversity B2B Marketing, IBM Corporation from USA; Mrs. Catriona Wallace – CEO of Flamingo AI Ltd from Australia; Mrs. Anasuya Gupta – CEO CICO Technologies from India and Mrs. Xu Ping CEO Henan Imported Materials Group from China. Mrs. Thuy Tien made a great impression on the international delegates as after a long time. By her warm voice and confident manner, IPPG’s CEO shared her thoughts about authorizing to women in doing business as well as her experience in doing business persuasively and passionately. CEO’s IPPG proved that she’s totally well-qualified to represent Vietnamese women entrepreneurs.