Mai Kiều Liên

Mai Kieu Lien was born on September 1, 1953 in Paris, with family roots in Vi Thanh, Hau Giang; her father, Dr. Mai Van Thong, was a physician. In the mid 1970s, while studying physics, she was sent to the Soviet Union to train in meat and dairy processing, part of a state program preparing specialists for the country's postwar reconstruction. She returned to Vietnam in 1976 and joined the Southern Coffee-Milk Company, the forerunner of Vinamilk, as an engineer, just as the firm was rebuilding three dairy plants wrecked by the war.

She rose from engineer to deputy technical director, then deputy general director, before being appointed General Director of Vinamilk in 1992. In the early 1990s she launched what became known as the "white revolution," building up domestic dairy farming so the company could reduce its reliance on imported milk powder. In 1998 she personally negotiated Vinamilk's first export shipment, 300 tons of milk powder and 2,000 tons of condensed milk sent to Iraq while the country was still at war. When Vinamilk was equitized and listed on the stock exchange in 2003, she also took on the role of board chairwoman, a post she gave up in 2015 to focus on running the company as CEO.

Under her leadership, Vinamilk grew from a small state enterprise into Vietnam's largest dairy company, with a market capitalization in the billions of dollars and products sold in more than 60 countries, generating close to $3.5 billion in cumulative export revenue. She was named Labor Hero of the Renovation Period in 2005, received the Third Class Independence Medal in 2022, and has repeatedly appeared on lists of Asia's most powerful businesswomen compiled by Forbes and Fortune, most recently Fortune's "100 Most Powerful Women in Asia" in 2024 and 2025. She is also the only Vietnamese businesswoman to receive a Lifetime Achievement award from Forbes Vietnam.