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.