Vietnam’s ‘Bikini Airline’ CEO seen as Asean’s next billionaire
Vietnamese entrepreneur Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao earned her first million by trading fax machines and latex rubber. That was two decades ago when was just 21 years old.
Today at 45, Thao is poised to be Vietnam’s – and most likely Southeast Asia’s first — lady billionaire by managing VietJet Aviation Joint Stock Corporation, Vietnam’s sole private airline, where the flight stewardesses in red and yellow bikini suits will pleasantly greet you aboard.
The net worth of this low-cost carrier airline is expected to peak at $1.3 billion (PhP59 billion) in the next few months, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making her the first ‘Iron lady’ tycoon in the airline industry.
A gargantuan chunk of her wealth is sourced from VietJet and her shares in Dragon City, a 65-hectare real estate development located in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Thao told Bloomberg in an interview that her focus now is how to boost VietJet’s growth and how to expand its market share and make it number one.
She also plans to sell 30 percent of her 95 percent ownership stake in the company.
In addition to VietJet, Thao also owns big stakes in three Vietnamese resorts and is vice chair of the privately-controlled Ho Chi Minh City Development JS Commercial Bank, also known as HDBank.
Started at an early age
Thao started her business career in 1988 when she was still a college student in Russia studying finance and economics. With meager money in her pockets, she distributed consumer goods imported from Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea in the then Soviet Union.
After earning her first million in three years, Thao shifted her business products to steel and fertilizer.
She returned to Vietnam and invested in Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint-Stock Bank (Techcombank), and a second lender, Vietnam International Commercial Joint Stock Bank.
‘Reaching for the skies’
She opened her airline in 2011, competing with state-run Vietnam Airlines. Vietjet currently flies 47 destinations within the country and across Asia.
READ: Vietnamese low cost carrier hit over anti-women PR stunt
When interrogated on the bikini image of her cabin crew, Thao said: ”You have the right to wear anything you like, either the bikini or the traditional ao dai (Vietnamese clothing). We don’t mind people associating the airline with the bikini image. If that makes people happy, then we are happy.”
Last October, Vietjet’s first female pilot is a Filipino named Antonette Ortiz Parocha.
In the spring of 2015, Air Transport World reported that the Vietjet had a revenue of 10.9 trillion dong (S$673 million), and the numbers is foreseen to escalate once the carrier opens flights to other destinations. Gianna Francesca Catolico, INQUIRER.net
