Nguyễn Thị Nga

SeABank and BRG Group

Nguyễn Thị Nga is chairwoman of the Southeast Asia Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SeABank) and chairwoman of the BRG Group, a group of companies with over 15,600 employees nationwide engaged in diverse sectors including real estate, finance, golf courses, resorts, hotels, infrastructure construction, retail chains and automobile distribution.

Popularly known as “Madame Nga”, she is one of Việt Nam’s leading entrepreneurs with vast experience in the finance and real estate sectors. She was one of the first people to establish private banks in Việt Nam on the back of 25 years of management and governance experience in several large commercial banks including Techcombank and Asia Pacific Joint Stock Commercial Bank.

Holding key management positions in SeABank since 2007, Nga has helped transform it from a provincial bank to a prominent commercial joint stock bank with 160 branches and transaction offices nationwide, possessing assets worth around VNĐ103 trillion (US$4.5 billion) and a charter capital of VNĐ5.5 trillion.

Apart from finance, Nga is an influential entrepreneur in real estate with a large number of golf courses, resorts and hotels developed under the BRG Group, including Hilton Opera Hanoi, Hilton Garden Inn Hanoi, Kings’ Island Golf Course, BRG Legend Hill Golf Resort, and BRG Ruby Tree Golf Resort.

She is believed to be one of the most successful Vietnamese businesswomen, given her interests in banking, real estate, resorts and retail sectors. In recent years, her business group has entered new areas including automobile distribution, agricultural projects and leisure parks in co-operation with Japanese and Thai companies.

In 2016, Nga was honored with the Labour Order, Second Class, in 2016, by the President of Việt Nam. Early this year, Forbes Vietnam named Nga among the most influential Vietnamese women. A winner of several regional awards for her entrepreneurship, Nga is also a member of the ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ASEAN BAC).

Foreseeing geopolitical and economic uncertainties in the world in 2017, Madame Nga predicts that foreign capital will seek safe places and Việt Nam and other ASEAN countries, economically and politically stable, will become attractive destinations. She believes Việt Nam’s economic prospects are bright, with the Government’s supportive policies encouraging both domestic businesses and foreign investors.

With the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) established early last year, expanding markets and emergence of strong and experienced regional rivals mean that Vietnamese enterprises cannot passively rely on preferential policies from the Government, she says. Instead, they should focus on developing their internal resources and increasing their competitiveness.-VNS