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Le Hoang Diep Thao

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Le Hoang Diep Thao
Lê Hoàng Diệp Thảo
Born1973
OccupationEntrepreneur
Years active1996 - present
Known forFounder & CEO TNI King Coffee, Co-founder Trung Nguyen
Spouse
Đặng Lê Nguyên Vũ
(m. 1998; div. 2021)
Children4
Websitelehoangdiepthao.com

Le Hoang Diep Thao (Lê Hoàng Diệp Thảo) is a Vietnamese businesswoman and national leader in Vietnam's coffee industry. Together with her husband Dang Le Nguyen Vu, she co-founded Trung Nguyen Group, the country's foremost coffee producing company and among the best-known café chains nationwide.[1] In 2003 she was directly responsible for developing the firm's G7 instant coffee brand,[2] which has stood among the highest performing coffee trading brands in the region, consumed by in excess of a billion people in 60 countries and territories around the globe.[1] She is currently chairwoman and CEO of TNI King Coffee, headquartered in Singapore.[3]

In 2018, Thao was the first Vietnamese speaker invited to speak at the Allegra World Coffee Portal CEO Forum in Los Angeles, USA.[4]

Early life

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Le Hoang Diep Thao was born in 1973 in Gia Lai, Vietnam to a family that conducted business in the gold and silver trade from the early 1960s.[5]

Career

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After her graduation in 1994, Thao started work at the Gia Lai provincial Post Office for its “108” switchboard information service, where she worked for five years answering phone calls and providing information.[5] Noting that the majority of calls to the service were enquiries about the local coffee industry, she sensed a strong potential for a national coffee business that could be based in the region.[6] She met her future husband Dang Le Nguyen Vu, a medical student with aspirations to start a coffee business, when answering his calls to the service.[7]

As the two became romantically involved, Vu and Thao invested in their first coffee enterprise, based in Long Xuyen, which promptly failed. Thao offered to financially support a new coffee business targeting the major metropolitan area of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) using her family's resources. The pair married in 1998, securing the financial support, and moved to Ho Chi Minh City to begin the new business—which Vu named “Trung Nguyen”.[7]

The first Trung Nguyen coffee shop was opened at 587 Nguyen Kiem, Phu Nhuan District, Ho Chi Minh City in 1998.[8] The venue was an overnight success following a widely publicised campaign to promote the store's opening, involving the serving of free coffee for the first seven days of operation.[6]

Managing Trung Nguyen behind the scenes while her husband served to direct the vision and the public face of the business, Thao oversaw the development of a Trung Nguyen Coffee Shop chain, pioneering the first franchise in Vietnam. Within two years, the Trung Nguyen brand was attached to more than 1000 coffee shops in Vietnam.[9] The influence of the brand and its transmission of the coffee culture of the Vietnamese Central Highlands throughout Saigon (and later Hanoi) is popularly believed to be responsible for launching a “third wave” of coffee within the country, popularising the drinking of coffee at coffee shops as an affordable leisure pastime for all, and permanently changing the perception and consumption of coffee in the Vietnamese market.[10]

During a business trip to Germany in 2003, Thao became aware of the potential of the instant coffee business, a relatively underexplored market in Vietnam due to a reluctance in the local coffee industry to develop a perceived “fake” variety of coffee. Convincing Vu to support the new line of business—which he named “G7” in reference to his ambition to penetrate the world's most developed markets[11]—Thao led Trung Nguyen to invest in production facilities and launched the brand in Vietnam at a high-profile event at the famous Reunification Palace in Ho Chi Minh City, where during a blind taste test involving 20,000 drinkers, 89 per cent said they preferred G7 over a foreign brand.[8] G7 went on to take the top market share of 38 per cent in the product category within eight years.[12]

In 2006, Thao became vice chairman of the board of directors as well as the deputy general director of Trung Nguyen Group.[13]

In 2008, Thao founded Trung Nguyen International as a springboard to launch the Trung Nguyen and G7 coffee brands internationally.[14] G7 instant coffee became a high-performing commodity traded by the firm, selling in 60 countries around the world and achieving significant market penetration in China, South Korea and the US.[15]

King Coffee

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In 2015, for reasons stemming from personal family issues[16] Thao developed a new coffee brand intended to preserve and enhance the Trung Nguyen business after 20 years in the industry and her continuing efforts to popularise the consumption of Vietnamese coffee.[17] In April 2017, Thao established a new factory at the Nam Tan Uyen Industrial Park to produce a range of King Coffee instant coffee products.[18]

King Coffee was formally launched in 2016 with a glamorous launch on the popular Paris By Night programme, broadcast to Vietnamese viewers in 60 countries simultaneously, as a way to target the entire Vietnamese diaspora at once.[19] The TNI King Coffee brand launched in the Vietnam market in 2017, with the first King Coffee café opening in Pleiku city, Gia Lai.[20] The firm had a valuation upwards of US$60 million by 2018.[21]

In 2020, Thao was elected vice president of the Vietnam Cocoa Coffee Association for the ninth term and was awarded as Most Admired Entrepreneur in the Vietnamese Food & Beverage sector by Global Brands Magazine (UK).[10] The magazine also voted TNI King Coffee as “Fastest Growing Global Coffee Brand” and “Most Popular Coffee Brand in Vietnam”.[22]

In September 2020, she launched the Women Can Do project in partnership with the Central Vietnam Women's Union, with the goal of reaching 100,000 women to start a business by 2025.[10] She also launched the Happy Farmer foundation as a means to assist grass-roots coffee producers and improve their quality of life.[1]

King Coffee launched its first US coffee shop location in Anaheim, California in May 2021.[23]

References

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  1. ^ a b c "LÊ HOÀNG DIỆP THẢO CEO - Trung Nguyen International". Allegra World Coffee Portal CEO Forum. World Coffee Portal. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  2. ^ Nguyễn, Trung (19 September 2018). "Bà Lê Hoàng Diệp Thảo đã cùng chồng xây dựng "đế chế" Trung Nguyên như thế nào? (Kỳ 2)". Báo Pháp Luật Việt Nam (in Vietnamese). PHÁP LUẬT Việt Nam. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  3. ^ Nguyen, Lan Anh. "Estranged Wife Has Her Own Coffee King in Vietnam". Forbes. Forbes Vietnam. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  4. ^ "The Story of King Coffee: National Pride in Vietnam and Global Value". Comunicaffe International. Comunicaffe. 8 November 2018. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  5. ^ a b "Nhìn lại lai lịch bà Lê Hoàng Diệp Thảo". Tin tức Online (in Vietnamese). Tin tức Online. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  6. ^ a b Nguyễn, Trung (18 September 2018). "Bà Lê Hoàng Diệp Thảo đã cùng chồng xây dựng "đế chế" Trung Nguyên như thế nào? (Kỳ 1)". Báo Pháp luật Việt Nam (in Vietnamese). PHÁP LUẬT Việt Nam. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  7. ^ a b Tô, Lan Hương. "Bà Lê Hoàng Diệp Thảo: "49 ngày nhịn ăn đã cướp đi Đặng Lê Nguyên Vũ tuyệt vời của tôi"". soha.vn (in Vietnamese). Soha. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  8. ^ a b Nhung, Bùi. "CEO Lê Hoàng Diệp Thảo- Từ doanh nhân đến người truyền cảm hứng". cafebiz.vn (in Vietnamese). Cafebiz. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  9. ^ "Bà Lê Hoàng Diệp Thảo: Tôi phải mạnh mẽ mới cứu được Trung Nguyên, cứu được anh Vũ". VietNamNet (in Vietnamese). VietNamNet News. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  10. ^ a b c Kim, Hoa; T.D.V; Minh, Sol (8 February 2021). "CEO Le Hoang Diep Thao: Only with passion, can a startup business enjoy success". Tuoi Tre News. Tuoi Tre. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  11. ^ "G7 coffee enormously popular over the world". en.thesaigontimes.vn. Saigon Times. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  12. ^ Pham, Thai. "G7 takes lead in instant coffee market – VietNam Breaking News". www.vietnambreakingnews.com. Vietnam Breaking News. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  13. ^ Ha, Thi. "Royal tussle continues: 'Queen' insists she has rights in coffee empire - VnExpress International". VnExpress International – Latest news, business, travel and analysis from Vietnam. VNExpress. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  14. ^ "TNI opens first King Coffee in Gia Lai". asemconnectvietnam.gov.vn. Asem Connect. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  15. ^ Nguyen, Hang (29 May 2019). "Vietnam extends global reach through G7 coffee". Vietnam Investment Review - VIR. Vietnam Investment Review-. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  16. ^ Shmavonian, Karl. "Chairman Vu, Vietnam's Coffee King". Forbes. Forbes Vietnam. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  17. ^ Van, Anh (12 July 2018). "Trung Nguyen Group will have to compete with its subsidiary". Vietnam Investment Review - VIR. Vietnam Investment Review. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  18. ^ Minh, Do. "TNI Corporation to open 1,000 coffee shops in Vietnam". www.vneconomictimes.com. VN Economic Times. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  19. ^ Thế, Thanh; Thượng, Tùng. ""Quân vương" của Lê Hoàng Diệp Thảo". nguoidothi.net.vn. Nguoi Do Thi. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  20. ^ Nguyen, Daisy (13 July 2018). "Trung Nguyen Group will have to compete with its subsiary". Vietnam Insider. Vietnam Insider. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  21. ^ Nair, Rohit. "Meet the coffee queen". Khaleej Times. Khaleej Times. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  22. ^ "Best Coffee Brands – Vietnam". Global Brands Magazine. Global Brands Magazine. 11 November 2020. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  23. ^ Tong, Van (25 May 2021). "Vietnam's TNI King Coffee makes US debut". Inside Retail. Inside Retail. Retrieved 8 August 2021.