Welcome listeners of Vietcetera & Vietnam Innovators to the 2nd season of the show! Today, I have a really special guest with us. He’s on the North side of Hanoi. He’s Miro Nguyen Huu Hung Cuong. VP of Global Affairs of FPT Corp and partner at FPT Digi
Welcome listeners of Vietcetera & Vietnam Innovators to the 2nd season of the show! Today, I have a really special guest with us. He’s on the North side of Hanoi. He’s Miro Nguyen Huu Hung Cuong. VP of Global Affairs of FPT Corp and partner at FPT Digital. Hello Cuong! Hello Ruby! In Vietnam, everyone has heard of FPT. But I wanted to ask you a silly question, let’s say, an alien came down to Vietnam and doesn’t know who is FPT. Could you give them an as simple as possible explanation so this alien could understand who is FPT and what do you contribute to Vietnam’s economy? That’s a very fun question! If I were to meet an alien, I’ll probably say nothing.
But, let’s say, to answer someone who doesn’t know about Vietnam or hasn’t been to Vietnam, then FPT is a multiindustry, technology-centric corporation And as for FPT’s role in Vietnam. We’re one of the corporations that plays a hug role in many industries. We contributes in multiple industries, from traditional industries to modern industries. Thank your for this explanation. I’ve understand now! Could you share more a bit about your role? You have two positions. First one is VP of Global Affairs. The second one is Partner of FPT Digital. Could you tell us about your role in the company? Actually, I am very luck and honored to have my leaders allowing me to enter such an exciting playground.
I’m in charge of foreign related works. Basically it’s foreign affairs. And in charge of assisting our leader, Mr Binh, the president of FPT. So my role here is to connect and maintain the relationship with our strategic partners on a global scale. We don’t have restriction about any continent so it’s really great getting learn all the cultures. As for FPT Digital. It’s a role that’s still pretty new for me. I just joined in June this year. We’re working on a lot of interesting projects. First one is digital transformation consulting for big companies. Another one is we’re taking parts in activities relating to socioeconomic planning for provinces.
This is something I find to be very interesting and it’s also a pretty new field too, so I’m very excited to join. Thank you for sharing! I’m hoping to hear more of your stories about digital transformation or innovation in today’s conversation. Firstly, something I finally got a chance to speak to a very known tech corporation and the topic I’d like to bring up today is ”corporate innovation’. Which is the innovation in scale of a corporation. With Vietnam Innovators, I’ve had the honors to speak to lots of young companies, startups about innovation already. I think that the innovation model for each company at different stages and scale will have different elements.
This will be the main topic of today’s episode. For this first question, one of our anonymous audience would like to ask you a tricky question. Which is, many would see FPT as a company that grew from outsourcing. In Vietnamese, it doesn’t sound very flattering, right? What are your thoughts on this? Thank you, anonymous listener, for this question. But to say we grew from that isn’t entirely true. Outsourcing is also a new business field that we put out to the market during the end of 1990. Of course, this area has contributed a huge part to the growth of FPT. And made a name for it in the international market.
But to say that we grow from there, I would say that isn’t very accurate. Because, as your already know, FPT also took place in telecommunication, retail & education. So there is a variety of different departments. But some people might have a perception and assume that FPT is just an outsourcing company. But truth is, that’s not very true. Other than outsourcing, we have a variety of finished products. We have interesting technology solutions and is acknowledged by other countries. Right now, we have a variety of departments at FPT. But technology and new technology are currently the fields that takes the forefront.
So allow me to ask you more about technology and new technology. What is FPT”s innovative strategy in technology? What are FPT’s main investment for innovation and why? As you said, today’s topic is ‘corporate innovation’. So I would like to say that ‘corporate innovation’ doesn’t have to do with tech only. I remember when I got back to Vietnam I worked for FPT in Europe. Two branches in Europe before going back to Vietnam. When Covid happened I’ve seen innovations in operation and management. Innovation could happen in works that are pretty much daily that we don’t pay much attention into. So, in terms of ‘corporate innovation’, FPT is a corporation with a very special culture.
You can’t really compare with any other place in Vietnam or in the area. That culture alone has triggered our spirit of innovation. Here, we are encouraged to to express their interesting ideas. They don’t have to hold it back. They could show it to colleagues and leaders so we could discuss it together. So ‘corporate innovation’ doesn’t have to just be about technology. But in terms of the direction of technology, it’s true that we’ve applied multiple technologies into our operation and management, so that we could save time and operate or manage more effectively to increase productivity and to be more transparent in our data.
Within FPT”s internal team and maybe for the customers, we’re focusing a lot on AI Artificial Intelligent. That’s probably the most important aspect and I would like to say that Actually, the reason is quite simple. Based on our research and experience on the market, or from customer feedbacks, we think that AI will grow really well. It’s growing and will be growing stronger in the future. How we’ll invest into AI would be, one, invest into human resources. FPT has a lot of programs to attract talents who works in AI to take care of big problems of FPT. two, invest in Education. We can’t just rely on available resources on the market.
We will have to invest in the long run by investing into the education system of FPT. We’re also working hard on training and improve their capability in AI through a few activities like, as announced, FPT will have an AI city in Quy Nhon and we will have a university specialized in AI, maybe first of its kind in the area. We’ve also signed cooperation agreement with a few of the world’s top AI researching institute and have acquired talents and top specialists of AI. So I think that’s the field that FPT would continue to invest and develop in the future. Thank you for sharing with us about some of the big projects at FPT.
Going to ‘corporate innovation’, it’s true, as you said, innovation isn’t just about technology, it’s also other elements like business model, operation, human resources. You’ve mentioned an interesting project of FPT, which is the AI city in Quy Nhon. This project started in the end of last year, right? Speaking about this project, I would like to ask Actually, this question was from on of our listeners. Her name is Julia Babcock. She is Program Administrator at Vietnam Oregon Initiative. She would like to ask about public policy. In order to have a project on a large scale with such a long term vision, then the role of the government is very important for the collaboration with corporations or related parties to the government.
The question I’d like to ask on behalf of our listener to you is could you share more about how did FPT created these partnerships with the government? It’s true that the role of the government and their policies or their legal framework is very important and plays a huge role in the growth of technology and innovations. So to be honest with you, it’s true that for the past 5 years, there has been certain actions and there has been some positive outcomes. There were support programs for tech businesses. To be more specific, it will have to do with tax policies, and human resources policies. For startup companies, Vietnam had also have specific actions to support and facilitate these businesses But in general, we still haven’t got there compare to other countries.
There are still lots of things to improve and there are lots of chances out there for businesses, especially in tech. FPT have always accompanied and have had good support from the government. As for the reason why, FPT is one of the corporates that has contributed to the tech industry in Vietnam. Right now, there are over 30,000 workers in tech. And there are around 70,000 students of FPT Education Group. Those are the people who will play a part in the tech landscape in Vietnam in the future. But I would also like to say that, in order to go stronger, faster As we all know, technology grows really fast.
If our legal framework or condition doesn’t adapt fast enough, then we would lose some of our momentum. So, if I were to consider overall, in terms of economic development & digital transformation or other things that other countries are currently working on, the momentum of Vietnam right now is great. Everyone may have heard, or read about how digital transformation is being talked about on some level or some depth. In order to achieve this, it’s also important to have a vision or a specific move that is consistent. It’s not good when there are fragmentations, each party doing their own ways or having their own opinion.
So FPT is trying hard to spread the information or share our knowledge or experiences. Because at the end of the day Like the question from the anonymous person, asking about outsourcing Thanks to outsourcing and expanding globally, we’ve learned so much from international partners so we could bring those knowledge back to Vietnam. It’s true that it’s a rare chance that we get to learn from 100 years old corporation, or maybe even 200 years that are still on the market. I think those are the important things that we need to consider and look out for. That’s a very powerful answer and very true to Vietnam’s economy.
I would like to ask more about Let’s go back to ‘corporate innovation’. With FPT’s large scale, you will have a big amount of staffs and subsidiaries. So what is the biggest challenge for innovation for a big corporate? I think it is human behavior. Mindset and human behavior is hard to work with. I would like to share a bit about the works that I’ve done to innovated some of the procedures. After Covid happened, We went from Back then, when we work on plannings, we would plan for 1 year. And then we’ll have quarterly evaluations. But then, after Covid happened, the time cannot that long anymore.
We now have to check or supervise all the business results or business reports on each market in a very short amount of time. Which is daily or weekly. Before this, there weren’t any situation like this. We’re used to the old system operation, and datas and updates and such. Therefore, we didn’t need to rush. So, to change our behavior, from leaders, middle managements to account managers. Changing to getting updates everyday for us to have reports every week, is something very difficult. System is not a problem, it’s already there. Datas can be collected. But we need to make sure of the accuracy of those datas and is updated daily, and all the informations are real time.
So human behavior is the toughest part. Another thing is that When we’re a large scale corporation, every procedures will automatically becomes more complicated. If we were to compare a startup with a large scale corporation, then it’s true when a startup makes a decision or putting something new into operation, it usually would take a few days. But for a corporations, there are many connected systems, legacies and habits of the last 30 years. That’s the second challenge. And then we also have to convince everyone to an awareness, we have to educate them, lead them and provide them informations so they could understand why we need to do it.
We didn’t need to do that before. I would admit that Covid is the catalyst for this change. If it wasn’t for Covid, I think that behavior wouldn’t have changed. Thank your for sharing an interesting story about the inner workings of FPT. While you were sharing this story, it reminds me of a podcast done by the founder of LinkedIn. He mentioned when LinkedIn was still new, the strategy for innovation was done very fast. But once they’ve become a corp, their strategy focuses a lot more on things they could do that will have an impact in the long run. And they would decline any initiative that needs to be done fast.
Because the scale at the corporate stage is already large. So they couldn’t have speed as their advantage, but they’lll use their scale instead. I wonder what do you think about this? Is it similar to FPT? Actually, FPT did encounter problems for a corporate too. I’d like to cite what our president, Mr Binh, said which is “faster fish is more successful than bigger fish” Our scale might be big but our actions still has to be quick, like a startup. To achieve that is definitely a challenge. When that issue was raised, t’s quite a big challenge. Like how are we going to change direction this big of a boat in such a short time? But I do think that maybe the majority, maybe about 80%, of the initiatives was put into implementation very quick.
Luckily, we do have that special culture of when there”s a decision made, and everyone is aware of the problem, as well as the current issue, the execution is done very quick. So I think, to compare to LinkedIn, maybe there’s some differences but maybe thanks to FPT’s culture that helps getting the innovations initiatives done very quick. I would like to share about this one time I got to speak to your team. They mentioned project that I can’t reveal yet, but I was very impressed with their operation speed. They’ve hired almost 1000 software engineers to work on a major project for FPT. I think that only FPT could hired so much people this fast.
I would like to add that it’s not just in Vietnam but also in the world. The project that we were sharing you in Ho Chi Minh was for a US client. I would also like to add that FPT has won a few cases where other giant tech corporates had to surrender. But FPT was able to do it. This case has to do with a big an electrical manufacturing company in Korea They also have an urgent issue, which is hiring hundreds of people in 6 months. This is something that even other big names in the world couldn’t do. FPT has accepted this challenge and has had some successful outcomes for our client. And thanks to that client, FPT entered a new market.
And now we have other clients too. So yea, from what I’ve just shared with our listeners, businesses like that has opened new doors for FPT. I was really impressed when I heard about this ‘super speed’ for recruiting talents in tech like this. Speaking of talents, what do you think about the tech talents in Vietnam? Especially the huge tech unit of FPT who was trained by your university. You’ve trained a lot of tech talents. What do you think about Vietnam talents compare to international talent? I remember about 2 years ago, I also did research and analyzed about our giant competitions. How are they like, what are their conditions and such.
So I studied some of the big tech companies in India. As for the greater scale, India has a population of 1.3 billion. English is like their native language. And technology has made huge contribution to their GDP. A company would usually have 200,000 400,000 staff. And their scale is really big. So their condition is less limiting. 1.3 billion people so much more compares to Vietnam. Vietnam population only has 100 million. But in term of Vietnam’s scale, within those 100 millions, those who went to university, or has a background in tech or math, or just anything to do with tech, there’s not many of them.
Even just those who knows English to be able to work in foreign markets, there’s even less of them. So to put it in a positive way about the capability of Vietnam, I think we still need to take more actions. The first one should be language. It’s very necessary for working with foreign clients. Second one is the mindset. The mindset is By nature, Vietnamese are very hardworking and very humble. But sometimes that ‘humbleness’ is seen as a lack of confidence. When sitting in the same room with clients, let’s say, there’s an Indian, a Filipino and a Vietnamese person. It’s always the Vietnamese who lacks confidence.
Oh, is it so? I’ve also have spoken to Indians too, it’s true that they are very confident. But in terms of capability of Vietnamese tech experts, I do regard them highly and I think they have a lot of potentials. Is it enough right now? I would say no. Are there still room for improvement? Absolutely yes. Amazing! Thank you for sharing! This next question comes from a very loyal listener of Vietnam Innovators, his name is Bach Pham, He is a data scientist based in Canada. Bach’s question to you is in the last couple of years, after the explosions of tech start ups in Vietnam Despite the ecosystem expanding fast, it was still very young.
What role does FPT, a senior in the industry, who has grow a very successful company in Vietnam and in the world, play in this ecosystem so Vietnam could become a tech hub of East Asia and of the world. This question seems to be quite complex. Thank you Bach! Okay, speaking of talents, we haven’t mention about Vietnameseborn talents who are based overseas. They are a very important community. That’s what a lot of Vietnamese corps are aiming for. They wanted to bring those Vietnamese talents to return to Vietnam and help solve our problems. You are also a Vietnameseborn talent who used to live overseas but now you’ve moved back to Vietnam.
Yes, that’s right. So, going back to Bach’s question. It’s true that startups in Vietnam has been growing very fast. Especially with the conditions that we’ve mentioned, in terms of market, digital adaptability or digitization. We’re being regarded highly for that. It’s true that there’s a lot And what role does FPT has? We did have a unit called FPT Ventures. Now it’s called VIISA. It is a accelerator capital for startups Other than that, we’ve also played the role of an incubator for FPT’s internal startups. A very interesting initiative that FPT has been doing is to host idea competitions within FPT internals.
For a corporation with 30,000 staffs, it’s hard for us to find a talent who is like a hidden gem. So, thanks to programs like that, we could encourage them to shine. Some of these guys has gave us great ideas and there have been many products made by FPT ourselves. And we’ve had a good stand on Vietnamese and foreign markets. That’s the second thing that we did to facilitate that inner startups to grow. The third one is, as everyone knew, FPT do invest in startup companies. Base.vn is one example that many of you may have heard of. We’ve also invested in other startups as well. We really do keep our eyes on startups that has a scale that’s big enough or has an innovative tech solutions that could contribute to FPT”s business.
That’s another thing that we did. The fourth thing is, we provided a lot of open platforms for startup companies to use during product development or during market development. We have platforms using AI, chatbot, voice bot,.. Currently, startups can use it for free. So we’re providing the infastructure for them to grow faster. Speaking of AI, I would like to share a little story. I’ve had a chat with Hai of FPT AI days ago, and Hai offered to Vietcetera, we’re also a startup, to use FPT Voice, product of FPT AI, for free. And when I checked out the voice, I was very surprised. The voice was automated into textto-speech and it sounded really good.
Sounded like a true broadcaster. I was very impressed with it and very surprised to get those offers through LinkedIn. We were just connections on LinkedIn. I haven’t met him before but I was very impressed with this generous offer. But truth is, since we’re talking about startups. A startup in Vietnam, Arena, has spoken to people from a corporate in Korea. In Korea, they have very specific policies on how to support and protect startups. Currently, in big markets, especially Korea, big corps have taken over the majority of business fields. So there’s not much space to experiment, to take that piece of the pie.
Vietnam hasn’t reach that point yet. But we do lack some of the foundation, legal framework or protection programs or support programs for startups to grow faster. Right now, startups in Vietnam that expands globally, just in the East Asia region only, there isn’t many of them. They may be successful in Vietnam but very little of them could expand globally. But we could see a wave of startups from East Asia going into Vietnam. So, there need to have people like Bach to make products made in Vietnam or startups found in Vietnam. and bring it out to the world. That’s what I would like to see. We need to push this harder so we bring Vietnamese talents to the world.
I would like to see this happens as well. I think it will come soon. Speaking of startups, I’d like to share something. Our ecosystem is still young right now, but it’s been blowing up fast. When I get to work with venture capitals, they’e betting on the Vietnamese market a lot. Recently, more capitals have opened and they’re also a part of the ecosystem so they could train startups with a global mindset. I hope that we’ll be able to witness a lot of startups in Vietnam making a name for Vietnam in the world. Next, other than ‘corporate innovation’, you have also done a lot in terms of global scaling for FPT, as you’ve mentioned before.
You are VP of Global Affairs, right? I’m curious and would like to ask more about this. Firstly, what is FPT’s strategy for global expansion? For FPT, when it comes to foreign markets, and developing foreign markets, we have a program called ‘Follow the sun’. Or ‘Theo chan de quoc’ in Vietnam internal teams. I see! Actually, we take really simple steps. Most of the time, we’ll be customercentric. Thanks to lots of our clients are based in different countries, they required us to be present at the same place as them FPT are always ready for that. For instance, like the Korean company we mentioned, we also followed our client into their market.
And now this market is full of potential for us. The second thing is, when we’re researching about new markets, I was fortunate enough to join the EU market. I was at Slovakia at the time and got called to move to Germany. It wasn’t really a brand new market. But the market didn’t have much clients. We didn’t have much resources. So what was our strategy and our unique selling point? I’ll share some sales tips that we used. Number one. People in Germany, some of them didn’t have enough information about Vietnamese market. They would assume that Vietnam is somewhere in Indochina, similar to Laos and Cambodia, some assumes we’re like Thailand.
Their image of our tech scene, or the capability of our people is not very accurate. So we’d have to bring Vietnam to them. When we do, we don’t talk about how many company or engineers do we have. Instead, we’ll start with the people, culture and cuisine. Those are the things we’ll mention first so they could feel closer to us. Then we’ll get into the company scale, and what does the departments that are growing here looks like for the past 10 years. And then, we’ll mention about what does the capabilities of the Vietnamese look like. To grow this market, we followed the ‘Follow the sun’ method.
Number two. For markets that we think has potential, FPT will consider and research by setting up a representative office for market research or maybe through M&A. There isn’t a specific structure. It’ll be case by case. But those we’re two of our methods for market expansion. Thank you for this insight! You’ve mentioned that Vietnamese companies should have an ambitious mindset to expand globally once they’ve had a firm stand in the local market. What advice would you give to young Vietnamese companies with ambitions like that? For advice I was very fortunate to be able to work with a team of a Singapore startups or East Asian startups.
They’re very For example, Taiwanese startups. Their market isn’t too big. But once they’ve had an idea for startup, they don’t just think about the Taiwanese market, they’ve already have plans for foreign markets. What I’m seeing right now isI’m not talking about big companies, but for a middle to small company or startup to expand globally. when we’re working on business plan, bouncing ideas, we should think big right from the start. We may start in Vietnam, in our local market because we understand the language, the culture. But we should already have a global vision once we’ve already had an idea.
Most of the people here I’ve met a lot of people from the startup & tech community. I do would like to advice everyone to have a bigger picture. You should read and do research about foreign markets. Especially learning about their cultures, their people and their country. Here’s an interesting story. While I was working overseas, in countries that I haven’t been before. Along with the leaders of FPT, what’s really cool about them is that we won’t travel to meetings by cars but we’ll use public transportations. We’ll eat at the local restaurants. We will be able to truly learn about the people here.
We blend in, right? Because we try to blend in, we could see, and experience so we could know how we should treat our clients. The way we speak or behave and such, everything has to be appropriate. Everyone should observe their culture, people and society. It’s very important. Thank you for sharing! I would like to do a small recap, which is young companies should have a global ambition. To aim for the global market, or a bigger market compares to Vietnamese market from the start. The second thing is to find ways to blend in, to truly learn and understand their culture, both life and work, of the countries that they’re aiming for.
Now, I would like to discuss with you about leadership, which is also your role. You’re in a big corporation and has to lead many people. This is a very important skill. And leadership is always the most important one, in the top 10 most important skills, ranked by World Economic Forum. I’ve been following this chart for a while because they’d release it every few years. And ‘leadership’ is always in the top 10. Speaking about the leadership role, what is your biggest challenge as a leader? The biggest challenge That’s a good question too! I’ve also done a lot of research about the leadership role.
Especially how different that role is among the nations. What is the difference between leaders in a Viet company and a leader in a foreign company in Vietnam. Most of the time, I’ll ask them when I first meet them. I’m very curious about their experience. In my opinion, the hardest part about being a leader is it has to do with their mindset. How can I lead my team in the most appropriate way? Because if I were to lead a team with Vietnamese people, then it’s different. If there are any foreign element in it, then that will be different too. So far, I really enjoy working with teams that has a variety of culture.
There are many people who used to live or used to study overseas. When it comes to leadership, they will have an open mindset. Which is in terms of perception and logic, they will have a different mindset. The hardest part for Vietnamese is, like I’ve mentioned before, like we tend to be humble, or sometimes lack confidence, and we’re not confident with our questions. Another thing is that when we have a solution, it might be amazing but we’re too afraid to speak up. So the hardest part is to overcome. Some member of my team has went through a lot of change. At first, they only do what is being told.
But now, they start to have a critical thinking. They would challenge and question things. And they start to think more often. So it’s not just taking the command but also ask questions, taking every aspect into consideration. I could see that change already. It’s really hard to push them to have some kind of critical thinking, to have a mindset or capability to see things in different angles. In other countries, people would train to communicate. Actually, leadership has to do with psychology a lot. We will have to understand people. We will have to understand the way others think or the way they work.
I think this is something that is very important and difficult to achieve. From what I know, as a leader, you don’t just manage people who work directly with you, but you also have to work with bigger leaders. For example, the president of the corporation. So how can you have an influence on bigger leader? Actually, to influence them is quite difficult. But of course, in our job, for me and maybe for you as well, I have to meet with people who have been leaders for years. Or founders of big corporations. To be honest, it’s very hard. I remember when I was in Germany, in 2016, 2017. I got to meet a leader from a major insurance company.
As soon as I opened the door, they could see that I was intimidated. They could see that I lack confidence. He’s very mature, sitting in a very luxurious room, the way they speak and everything else was professional. Compare to now, things has changed a lot and I’ve gained lots of experience for me to share here. Number one. In order to have the leader to listen, not that we try to influence them. For them to listen or to spend their precious time to have a conversation with us. Then we would need a good knowledge base. Which is our experience, our informations, our research. It has to be broad and accurate.
Number two is to be well prepared. And always keep in mind what kind of question they’ll ask. I’ll always meet up with my team or my colleagues before going to meet a leader, or going to a business meeting. We should always predict the situation that could happen. We should be prepared for the questions they might ask. Those are the parts we could prepare ourselves before speaking to the bigger leaders. Or our seniors, who has more experience. It’s not something too difficult. This is actually a daily practice. You have to always keep up with the news. Read, study and research and we might even have to do an extra job.
Which is not just doing research on what the leaders have assigned you to or try to just meet their expectation. You need to go an extra mile for it. So a little advice for everyone would be when they assign you a topic, you should research related topics that could support our main topic as well. Topics that are either directly or indirectly related. Then you could make a difference and maybe the leaders will agree to listen to you. Thank you for shairng with us! So that is it for the more serious questions for this conversation today. Now, I would like to ask some quick and fun questions. And you’ll have 30 to 60 seconds to answer.
Here’s the first question. What do you like most about your job? Learning new things. What do you hate about your job but you have to do it anyway? Okay so, back then, there was too much traveling. But right now, there’s nothing that bothers me. A tip for worklife balance? Ah, this question was from Florence Le, from your team. Okay, how to have worklife balance. It has to do with what I’ve mentioned before. Which is how do we feel engaged with our job, how do we enjoying going to the office, how to we relax when we get home, and how do we keep our own social network. We all have the same 24 hours.
It’s about how do we divide it effectively. Some will spend time doing other things. Could be meditation, or it could be using social medias, or making videos. For me, outside of work, I really like to networking. I like to meet new people which could also benefit my job by learning new things. Most of my outside network has nothing to do with work. It’s usually cuisines or entertainment. There’s many different areas and it could broaden my knowledge. In terms of family. Family is definitely important. If your family life isn’t happy then it will affect other things too. You need to divide your time reasonably so you could spend it as effective as possible.
Thank you for sharing. If you were to have a super power, what woud it be and why? I just talked to my wife a while ago. And we thought how cool it would be if we could read people’s mind. I don’t know if it’s actually helpful, but if I were able to do that then maybe I’ll try using it for a while. Okay! What was the best advice you’ve received recently? I didn’t get any advice recently but I do remember an advice from mr Binh. I got it during an event after a very stressful meeting. We were just relaxing together and I told him that I have a few problems that I have no idea how to solve. And it was when I was in Germany, I asked him for some advice on how I could solve this problem.
And he said that if I can’t solve it today then just go to bed and continue it tomorrow. And if you still can’t then continue go process until you come up with a solution one day. That’s a good advice! I would like to take that advice as well. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your humor? From 1 to 10 for humor? Actually that’s hard to judge. Maybe my friends would be better at it. I’m also someone who likes to joke around. Even in serious circumstances, I try to not be too serious. I want to create a comfortable atmosphere with colleagues or even clients. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d probably rate 6 or 7.
I see. What about ambition? Ambition is big. I’d rate 9.5 9.5? I thought it would be 15! What was your bravest decision? It was to return to Vietnam. Ah, why so? As you said before, I was born and raised overseas. Most of my time was spent overseas. Back then, I’ll usually go to Vietnam when it’s the summer time. I’d get a 2 months break so we’d travel to Vietnam. But to visit and to live is two different things. I remember back then, I moved from Slovakia to Germany, it’s also a huge decision. But going from Slovakia to Germany is still traveling within Europe, so it didn’t affect my life much.
Even though the language and environment is different. But the decision of going back to Vietnam, or more like moving to Vietnam was probably the bravest. All of the people that I asked for advice about it also advice me not to. Because Vietnam is very complicated and there is this or that or Basically overseas Vietnamese coming back won’t live well here. That’s most of the advice I got. I even asked my parents and my parents wasn’t on board with it either. But I still decided to return to Vietnam. And now, even though it was a bold move, I also feel a lot happier, everything is going well. Of course, there is some limitations compare to Europe, but there are also lots of positive things.
Congratulations of this brave decision, I hope that you’ll continure to do well. What is your bedside book? As of right now, it is the one I’m reading now, ‘Never split the difference’ by a former FBI agent who is in charge of negotiating with terrorists and terrorist situations. He has retired and is now sharing about those methods and how he handled those negotiations. I’ve finished it already. I think that the book was very interesting. Those who usually have to negotiate or communicate It’s not just about business negotiating but also negotiation between family members. There’s a lot of interesting experiences that he shared.
I will also read this book! Before we end the show, my final question is if you were to have a time machine that takes you back to see yourself in your 20s, what advice would you give yourself? To be honest, I wouldn’t say anything that are too profound. ‘Just enjoy what you currently have and try to learn and contribute as much as possible, in your capability’. Yea, it’s not that profound. But it’s still a very interesting advice. I think I could also learn from that advice even though I’m in my early 30s already. Thank you for coming to our show! I’m glad to have this discussion about corporate innovation, nation innovation and small personal stories of yours too.
https://youtu.be/vBcOzwMWGRoWelcome listeners of Vietcetera & Vietnam Innovators to the 2nd season of the show! Today, I have a really special guest with us. He’s on the North side of Hanoi. He’s Miro Nguyen Huu Hung Cuong. VP of Global Affairs of FPT Corp and partner at FPT Digi
