Chad Ovel has lived and worked in Vietnam continuously since 1996.

Chad is a Partner at Mekong Capital, a Vietnam-focused Private Equity firm, specializing in consumer-driven businesses. Established in 2001, Mekong Capital has the most extensive private equity track record in Vietnam having completed 42 private equity investments, of which 27 have been fully exited. Chad has led Mekong Capital’s successful investments in various sectors including pharmaceuticals, real estate, logistics, casual dining and retail.

Before joining Mekong Capital, Chad had a successful track record as a CEO leading the rapid growth of ScanCom Vietnam, a foreign-owned furniture export manufacturing business, and AA Corporation, a local company operating in the sectors of construction, retail and manufacturing.

Chad is originally from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA. He holds a BA from Carleton College and an MBA from University of Chicago.

BICH PHAM

Managing Director, Head of Corporate Finance Division

Võ Thanh Hòa is a Vietnamese Director and Film Producer. He was known for 13rd Sister: Three Deadly Days (Chị Mười Ba – 2020), A Hundred Billion Key (Chìa Khoá Trăm Tỷ – 2022), Nghề Siêu Dễ (2022), … He is known as a person with a lot of enthusiasm for Vietnamese cinema. In addition to regular filmmaking, he regularly organizes film-making groups to share knowledge and experience, creating an opportunity environment for young people to practice making films.

Thomas J. Vallely is Senior Advisor for Mainland Southeast Asia at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Vallely is also the current director of the Harvard Myanmar Program, which seeks to broaden and deepen the understanding of the development and democratic governance challenges facing Myanmar.

Vallely founded the Harvard Vietnam Program in 1989 and established the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program in Ho Chi Minh City in 1994. Vallely leveraged the Vietnam Program’s research to engage in a candid and constructively critical dialogue with the Vietnamese government about the strategic challenges confronting the country. Under his leadership, the Fulbright School emerged as a center of excellence in public policy research and teaching and a pioneer in the development of new modes of institutional governance in Vietnam.

Prior to founding the Vietnam Program, Vallely was a senior research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, where he worked on strategic and military issues in East and Southeast Asia.

He has worked as a political consultant and was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1980, where he served until 1987. From 2014 to 2017, Vallely served on the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Policy Advisory Board.

Vallely received a B.S. from the University of Massachusetts/Boston and an M.P.A. from the Kennedy School and served with the United States Marine Corps in Vietnam. Vallely served as Senior Advisor to The Vietnam War, an epic ten-part documentary miniseries directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.

Thanh Vu is Deputy Regional Managing Director and Vietnam Chief Representative for the US- ASEAN Business Council. He joined the Council as its first Vietnam Representative in late 2007 when the Council opened its Hanoi office. In this capacity, he has been advising the world’s leading multinational companies on business strategies and government policies in Vietnam and helping them engage directly with key decision makers in both the government and private sectors here. Prior to this, Thanh had worked in various capacities in Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs including Information and Outreach Manager for APEC 2006 Vietnam, as a member of the National APEC Organizing Committee, and Research Fellow and Teaching Staff at the Institute for International Relations (now Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam) in Hanoi. Thanh has over 20 years of experience as a business and political consultant in Vietnam, covering a wide range of issue areas including business, politics, the media, NGOs and social development. Thanh holds a master’s degree from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University where he studied international relations and public policies on a Fulbright scholarship in 2003 – 2005.

Sasha Mai is the Head of Business Development at Kyber Network, one of the world’s leading Decentralized Finance companies, which provides the technology infrastructure for billions of dollars of transactions on multiple blockchain networks. Previously, she worked as a technology and operations management consultant and supplier for factories spanning Southeast Asia.

Lan is currently the Head of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI) at Fulbright University Vietnam (FUV). Prior to FUV, she had over 10 years of experience in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation development with various strategic roles including the Head of Startup Ecosystem Development at the National Agency for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization (NATEC) under the Ministry of Science and Technology, and recently the Head of Exploration at UNDP Viet Nam Accelerator Lab. Lan was the co-founder and one of the main organizers of the first national startup event – TECHFEST Vietnam – since 2015, attracting hundreds of startups and investors as well as thousands of participants every year. She is one of the main authors of the National Programme to Support Startup Ecosystem in Viet Nam until 2025. In 2018, she made it to the Forbes Vietnam 30 Under 30 list as well as Apolitical’s list of 100 most influential young people in government in the world.

Joseph Mocanu – a Singapore based medtech investor. Joseph is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Verge HealthTech Fund focusing on early-stage healthcare technology companies that make an impact on global health. Prior to this, Joseph was a scientist researching new cancer therapies, a medical device entrepreneur, and a management consultant for Oliver Wyman where he led life sciences and digital health across Asia. He has 19 scientific publications, 3 patents, and has made investments in 27 healthcare technology companies to date.

Joseph has a PhD from the University of Toronto, and an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business.

Janice Trinh – Vice President of Quadria Capital, a leading healthcare PE in the region. With over 10 years of experience in healthcare investment in US and Asia, Janice is responsible for coverage, transaction execution, and portfolio management activities in Vietnam and Southeast Asia at Quadria Capital, one of the largest healthcare focused PE fund in Asia. In addition, she is an Investor in Portfolia, a Venture Capital fund investing in women’s health-focused start-ups and is currently advising many FEMTECH businesses in the region.