Vietnamese electric vehicle maker VinFast has appointed Pham Sanh Chau as the CEO of its India operations. Chau is a former diplomat, educator, and politician having served as the Vietnamese ambassador for India, Nepal, and Bhutan between 2018 and 2022.
As per Vietnamese media reports he has been appointed to lead the operation for VinFast in India. It was just last month, VinFast’s CEO Le Thi Thu Thuy announced its plans to expand operations globally including a $2 billion investment towards creating a manufacturing complex in North Carolina, and plans for factory in Indonesia and India.
The appointment of Chau could be seen as a rarity in the automotive or even in the corporate fraternity, given the fact, that a former diplomat with no business experience has been picked to lead a company’s entry into a completely new market. But if one digs a bit deeper, there is more than what meets the eye.
In his position as a Vietnamese diplomat Chau not only closely interacted with the Indian government, but also is said to be influential in building relationships with billionaires in India. He is said to have been instrumental in HCL Technology’s investment in the country; along with also promoting the country as a tourist and events destination for Indian billionaires.
Furthermore, in an interview with Dan Tri, a Vietnamese news organisation, Chau said that if he wasn’t a diplomat he would have been an entrepreneur.
“The quality of a trader is to dare to think, dare to do. Those two factors I have, but as a diplomat I can’t risk it. If I were an entrepreneur, I would give it my all. So perhaps, after retirement, I will spend the rest of my life trying my hand at this field, developing all the things that I couldn’t do when I was in diplomacy,” he was quoted (Google Translated from Vietnamese).
The company which got listed on the US Stock Exchange and once was aiming to compete with the likes of Tesla in the international market has been struggling to sell its cars globally. In fact, as per reports in 2022, the Vietnamese market saw sales of 280,000 new cars of which the company sold only 7,400 units. In H1 of CY2023, the company sold 11,000 cars, but more than half of it went to its parent VinGroup’s taxi company.
