Pham chi lan is a high profile figure. During her career she has advised several Prime Ministers on economic and political reform and has played an integral role in some of the nation’s most pivotal moments, including the lifting of the US trade embargo on Vietnam, and the shift towards a more market-based economy.
Throughout it all she has gained a reputation for saying things exactly how she sees them, not holding back on calling out ineffective policies and showing courage in the face of potential disagreement from her contemporaries.
Working for the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) for 37 years put Lan on the front line of negotiations between Vietnam and the US during the early 1990s. Her frequent meetings with US delegations and her advisory role to then prime minister, Vo Van Kiet, helped to lift the decades-old trade embargo that had served as a crippling barrier to development.
Even though Lan boasts an impressive list of career achievements, she remains humble, praising the efforts of others and downplaying her own integral role in the historic achievements that she was a key mover in.
After her official retirement in 2003, Lan was asked by then prime minister Phan Van Khai to work full-time for his advisory group, where she stayed until the group was disbanded in 2006.
In recent years Lan has focused her time and energy on pushing for institutional reform in Vietnam.
Lan’s most recent work has been co-authoring the ‘Report Vietnam 35’ with the World Bank. The report outlines the future of Vietnam’s economic and commercial development, social and environmental policy and institutional reform.
You can read this seven-chapter report online at the World Bank website.
Photo by Julie Vola / Word Vietnam
OvertlyCovert, Hanoi. 