Scholarship / Chevening essay - Leadership and Influence - Inspiration and motivation for a common goal [NEW]

LEADERSHIP essay

Chevening is looking for people who will be future leaders or influencers in their home countries. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your own leadership and influencing skills to support your answer

In my opinion, leadership is about inspiring and motivating people to work towards achieving a common goal. A leader is someone who is brave to take initiative, dedicated to work, adaptive with the situation, and resilient through challenges to achieve the determined goal.

Prior to my employment at XXX, a Vietnamese private equity firm, XXX didn't prioritize Environmental, Social, and Governance practices (ESG). The company perceived ESG as a compulsory requirement imposed by the Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) investors, thus, they only did the bare minimum and often underlooked ESG in the investment process. In 2020, when a new fund launched with more ESG requirements from DFIs, XXX offered me a position to fulfill the new minimum standards.

In diligently learning about ESG, I realized that ESG is not just about mitigating risks for an investor, but also adds value to investee companies through many means, such as retaining talents, saving cost from resource efficiency, communicating social responsibilities, and building sustainable brands. Therefore, if XXX keeps doing the minimum in terms of ESG, not only would the company face more risks but also lose opportunities to help investee companies optimize their businesses. As the first full-time ESG officer, I used this challenge as an opportunity to lead and raise the bar in implementing ESG. In particular, I led my company to go through a radical change in mindset and action.

I started by developing solutions for new actions. As I observed that financial aspects were successfully incorporated in investment decisions through quantified metrics, I created the first quantified ESG metrics system, to ease the adoption. To change the mindsets of others, I created a roadmap leading to the new ESG vision with clear milestones. I designed and conducted training sessions about the new practices. By sharing real life case studies where ESG is valuable, many of my colleagues are enrolled to join the new ESG era. For those who were not yet convinced by the examples that I shared, I dedicated my time to listen to the challenges they foresee in adopting the new ESG standards. I also enroll them to connect their personal goals to the mission of ESG so they can own the reason behind implementing ESG. Moreover, I went the extra mile to work directly with investee companies, helping them find the resources and coaching them to optimize their business through ESG practices.

After 2 years of my work, the new ESG model was implemented with a clear vision and roadmap. ESG became a core criteria for assessing new investments and is scored regularly post investment using the new metric system. People at XXX are aware of the risk and impact that ESG presents to each investment. I successfully motivated Mekong Capital to evolve from a Responsible Investor who only mitigates risks to protect investment value to a Sustainable Investor who adopts progressive ESG practices that enhances investment value.

Looking at the future, I want to lead Vietnamese businesses to become more sustainable and focus more on the long term environmental and social impact. I believe that Chevening will support me in widening my influence through access to new knowledge and connection to a diverse global network of talents.

Scholarship / Chevening essay - How networking helped me succeed in my career development [NEW]

NETWORKING essay

Chevening is looking for individuals with strong networking skills, who will engage with the Chevening community and influence and lead others in their chosen profession. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your networking skills, and outline how you hope to use these skills in the future. (minimum word count: 50 words, maximum word count: 500 words)

As a professional in the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) field, a new field in Vietnam, I experienced the importance of networking in accelerating my career, gaining knowledge, and access to new opportunities through active knowledge sharing.

At XXX, through mutual benefits, I developed a network of ESG experts with the investors, the Development Financial Institutions, who are willing to help me with technical challenges to de-risk our investments. Through mutual connections, I met ESG consultants who can help me conduct independent due diligences. Through active engagement on LinkedIn and attending seminars, I am updated on the recent trends to write my ESG reports with real life case studies. Finally, through storytelling and consistent check-ins, I maintained a network of ESG professionals and inspired ESG businesses who are eager for knowledge sharing. When XXX established a new fund, I successfully enrolled an ESG consultant to be one of the three key Investment Committee members, which is a crucial part of successful fundraising.

Among professional networks, the relationship with the Improving Private Sector Competitiveness (IPSC) program, organized by the Ministry of Planning and Investment was a meaningful one that I built and maintained. IPSC chose ESG as a pillar to increase competitiveness of Vietnamese businesses and reached out to XXX to give real life advice as an investor experienced in this field. Even though it is outside of my day-to-day job, I represented XXX n an interview, sharing the principles and giving case studies on implementing ESG. I maintained the relationship through consulting them on designing advocacy activities, connecting them with other ESG professionals, and attending their seminars.

After leaving XXX, I wanted to make meaningful changes to organizations outside of the current 15 invested companies of XXX ecosystem, using ESG. Knowing such a goal of mine, IPSC offered me a position of ESG expert to consult Vietnamese SMEs. Here, not only did I help companies build their first ESG strategies, I also developed deep relationships with the founders and CEOs to create a network of Vietnamese ESG enthusiasts and practitioners. I lead a technical knowledge sharing webinar, as an ESG expert, helping the SMEs to learn and offer space for them to share their own challenges and lessons learned.

My deep network with IPSC also opened the opportunity for me to do pro-bono work developing the first official Vietnamese ESG scorecard. This is published on the national public information sources for all businesses to assess their ESG performance, enhancing their competitiveness in attracting progressive buyers and international investors, setting core milestones to create benchmarks for ESG in Vietnam.

Being a member of the Chevening, not only do I want to get intellectual resources, including networks of people, back to Vietnam, but also bring the community that I built as a case study and resources to the global Chevening network. Through mutual respect and benefit, active engagement, and storytelling, I will use this network to inspire talents to pursue ESG career paths, businesses to implement ESG as a core business pillar to make impactful changes for the environment and society.