Nga Nguyen

Scholar background

Nga is a seasoned marketing expert with nearly two decades of experience. She is Head of Marketing - Brand & Product at Highlands Coffee, a prominent F&B chain in Vietnam, registered under the Viet Thai International brand. Nga oversees the product portfolio and spearheads the brand growth strategy, with a particular focus on expanding its presence across Asia.

Prior to Highlands, she served as the Category Marketing Director at Vinamilk, the leading player in the Vietnamese dairy industry. In this role, Nga was responsible for category marketing within the domestic market as well as international marketing campaigns aimed at expanding across ASEAN markets. Her career also includes various marketing roles within the food and beverage sectors, with experiences at well-known firms such as Friesland Campina, Suntory Pepsico Vietnam and Colgate Palmolive.

Nga holds a Bachelor's degree in Business with a specialization in Marketing from Monash University in Australia, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Vietnam. She went on to earn a Master of Global Trade at RMIT University through the Hinrich Global Trade Leader Scholarship Program.

Personal statement

Working as Marketing Director, I have been engaging with many business partners in Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia and recently, the Philippines to expand our markets. While results for some are visible, progresses for others require a much longer process. Simply put, they are entirely different markets, with distinctive consumer needs and beliefs, and the ways of how the market operates somehow are very different from what we assume it to be.

I have been haunted with the question of how to raise myself to the next level in my current role, and the answers are two-fold.

First, I would need to understand the complexity and challenges facing a company when entering a foreign market from a holistic global trade perspective, rather than just marketing, to help Vinamilk compete effectively in a growing unifying Southeast Asian region.

Secondly, I would like to grow my cross-border leadership ability and get ready for career opportunities in the region. Upon reaching out to local industry experts, to my dismay, while the successful stories of multinational and well-established brands entering Vietnam are many, the cases of taking a Vietnam brand internationally, with regards to the fast-moving consumer goods industry, are undoubtedly few and far between.

This Master of Global Trade program not only provides the tools to acquire the knowledge to compete more effectively in a diversifying Asian market, but also the opportunity to interact within a network of talented professionals from across industries with the same growth mindset. Hopefully, I could soon attempt to solve the riddle of bringing a local brand to regional level with flying colors.

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