CASE STORYMekong Capital, Vietnam
Mekong Capital is based in Vietnam, with offices in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. It's a private equity firm, and the companies they invest in are typically among the fastest growing market-leading companies in Vietnam.
It was established in 2001 by Chris Freund. Chris grew up in Chicago and is a massive fan of 1980s music. In his early twenties he did a year abroad studying Buddhism in India and living as a Buddhist monk in Thailand. After that he backpacked around the region, including a month in Vietnam.
Expecting a hostile and war-torn environment after watching movies such as Apocalypse Now, he was pleasantly surprised at how friendly everyone was in Vietnam. In 1994, he moved there for what was meant to be three years, but he never returned. He now calls Vietnam home, where he lives with his wife and two daughters.
In late 2007, Mekong Capital commenced an intensive transformation of its corporate culture. Two years later the positive impact of this transformation was clear, and, in 2010, Mekong Capital was the subject of case studies at the Harvard and London business schools. You know you are doing something right when these business schools want to showcase your work in a case study!1
What do you value?
As part of this transformation they developed core values that guide the day-to-day decisions of everyone who works for the firm. They are the most unique core values I have come across in my entire career.
Seven of the eight core ...
Get Magnetic Stories now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
