Nga Nguyen

Scholar background

Nga is a seasoned marketing professional with nearly 20 years of experience in driving growth and brand development across diverse industries. She currently serves as Marketing Deployment Director at British American Tobacco (BAT) Vietnam, where she oversees the growth agenda, portfolio performance and market activation strategies for Vietnam and Cambodia.

Previously, Nga was Head of Marketing - Brand & Product at Highlands Coffee, focusing on brand growth and regional expansion across Asia. She also served as Category Marketing Director at Vinamilk, driving domestic and international marketing efforts in ASEAN markets. Her career includes roles at FrieslandCampina, Suntory PepsiCo Vietnam and Colgate-Palmolive.

Nga holds a Bachelor’s in Marketing from Monash University, a Bachelor’s in English Language from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Vietnam and a Master of Global Trade from RMIT University, earned through the Hinrich Global Trade Leader Scholarship.

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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