president

Henry Nguyen - Lowell House, Classics ’95

Hoang (Henry) B. Nguyen is the Chairman of Phoenix Holdings, an investment firm focused on business and operations in technology, retail/consumer, financial services, education, media, and sports & entertainment. Some of Phoenix Holdings’ companies include Vietcap Securities (HOSE: VCI), Ban Viet Bank, VietCredit, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and Nobu Hotels & Restaurants in Vietnam. Prior to Phoenix, he was the Managing General Partner of IDG Ventures Vietnam, the country’s first venture capital and private equity firm focused on consumer, technology, media, and telecom investments in Vietnam.  In addition to these two roles, Henry is the Developmental Licensee (Master Franchisee) for all McDonald’s restaurants in Vietnam as well as the Executive Chairman of Timo, Vietnam’s first digital banking service and leading neobank in Vietnam.

 

vice president

Stephen Turban - AB ’17, Statistics

Stephen Turban is the co-founder of Lumiere Education & Leverage Assistants. Before founding Lumiere, Stephen studied at Harvard College (AB in Statistics), worked at McKinsey (Boston and Beijing) and was a PhD student at Harvard Business School.  Stephen is a full-time entrepreneur and a former researcher. His work has been covered by the Harvard Business Review, The Economist, BBC News, Freakonomics Radio, and the Washington Post. In college, he co-authored a book, Your Relationship GPA, which was a #1 Best Seller in Friendship on Amazon and in 2024 was published in China by CITIC Press Group (中信出版集团). In high school, Stephen lived in Taiwan as a Rotary Exchange student where he learned Chinese and drank a lot of soymilk. He is fluent in Mandarin, Vietnamese, and Spanish and can order cutting-chai in Hindi like an overconfident third grader. Stephen is also a part-time stand-up comedian in Vietnamese with the group "Saigon Teu." He is, to his knowledge, competing with absolutely no one in being the #1 white guy doing stand-up in Vietnamese.

 

Board member 

Teddy Kim - AB ’85, Economics

Teddy is a retired American ex-pat who’s been living in Saigon for a number of years.  While he’s been unsuccessful in learning Vietnamese during this time, his continuing efforts define the quote “the triumph of hope over experience”.  During his career he sought to combine his interest and education in 1) Economics, 2) Computer Science and 3) Architecture by 1) running a company that did 2) 2D/3D digital media for 3) Theme Parks.  Following that he did consulting on Digital Cinema where he was involved on a number of challenging projects.  Now he pursues his interests in science, technology and media while taking time off for travel.