Chairwoman of Sovico Holdings and CEO of Vietjet Air Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao is honored in the annual list of the World’s 100 most powerful women recently released by US Forbes magazine.
Chairwoman of Sovico Holdings and CEO of Vietjet Air Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao.
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The Vietnam's first self-made woman billionaire took her budget airline, VietJet Air, public in February 2017.
She launched the airline in 2011 and made a big splash early on with ads featuring bikini-clad flight attendants. The airline, which offers 300 flights a day, operates more than 40% of the nation's flights. She also has investments in HD Bank and real estate including three beach resorts.
Vietnam currently has four airlines, including national carrier Vietnam Airlines, budget operator Jetstar Pacific Airlines (partly owned by Vietnam Airlines), budget carrier Vietjet Aviation, and Vietnam Air Services (VASCO).
In 2018, Sovico announced it will embark on oil exploration with Taiwanese oil refiner CPC Corp.
Top of the list this year was Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, marking her 8th consecutive year being named the most powerful woman in the world, followed by UK’s Prime Minister Theresa May and Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde.
Forbes also included in the list three other representatives from the Southeast Asia region, namely Indonesia’s Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati at 78th rank, Executive Director and CEO of Temasek Ho Ching at 17th and Managing Partner at GGV Capital Jennny Lee from Singapore.
