Her Story
About Anh
I am a former refugee from Vietnam who arrived in the United States in 1975, and I have been working with displaced people since 1980, for almost 40 years. When I was serving as executive director for a nonprofit serving immigrants and refugees from all over the world, I challenged about 70 young people who were very smart but didn't want to pursue higher education. I told them that if I could do it, they should too. So I applied to MIT when I was in my late 60s and graduated from the Sloan School of Management MBA program in 2018. Then at age 70-something, I was invited to join Harvard's Advanced Leadership Initiative fellowship program, which I completed in 2023. I feel that I am at my peak right now. In spite of the fact that my English wasn't and hasn't been very good, as a woman of color and at my age, I learned from MIT that if I can help one person, I can scale it on a global scale to help a lot more people. That's why I retired from my nonprofit in 2020 to start a social impact company. My clothing company hires people who are new to the country and provides livelihood to refugee camp women in Southeast Asia. I'm also beginning to start a marketplace platform that will connect refugees in refugee camps all over the world to consumers worldwide. I was interviewed on Oprah Daily and spoke on The Moth Radio about my experience. I received about 2 or 3 dozen awards for my leadership and contribution to the local and global communities. 100% of the kids in that room applied for college and went on to become the first generation that went beyond high school. I'm one of the volunteers for the Boston Community Consulting Group, I'm in the MIT women's circle, and I received an award from several competitions at MIT where they called me the Ideas Alumna.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Anh
01What do you attribute your success to?
I have to say, when God made me, I felt His presence, and I bargained with Him a lot. I think God was the one that gave me the assurance that I'm created for a good purpose, like everybody else. The best advice really came from God - I cannot be afraid, which means I must take risk. That is an agreement between me and God. I said, God, if you open the door, I jump through it, and if I screw it, you bail me out. I also have to give my husband a lot of gratefulness. He's very intellectual, very smart, very kind, very gentle, and extremely patient. I'm the hard one, I'm the one who has to make things happen, I'm not happy when I see injustice. It's not easy to live with a person like me, but my husband is very kind and he said he appreciates the way I am, and he's always there to help me so that I achieved what I have achieved now. When I got accepted at MIT, I told my husband and my kids that I don't have any more money for them, and they said, go for it, because you will leave us a legacy.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Nobody gave me career advice, I had to tell you. Every step as a woman, as a refugee, as a broken English person, I had to figure it out myself. But I think, I believe in God, and I think the best advice really came from God. I cannot be afraid, which means I must take risk. So, that is an agreement between me and God. I said, God, if you open the door, I jump through it, and if I screw it, you bail me out. The same thing would be interviewed by you. I don't know whether you are a scam or not, but someone connected us and here I am.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
It's up to us women to do whatever it takes to pursue our dream. I had to go through a lot of doors shut on me, and a lot of negative assessment about my ability. And finally, I stopped proving to anybody, and I'm so grateful for those kids that I challenged them, and that's how my life changed in my late 60s. It's up to us, not to anybody else. And because of that, we have to make ourselves available to help other people. Like I said, it's up to us, but if no one allows us to go through the door, or to get us at the table, it's a long road.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The most difficult thing right now is that I'm trying to do a platform, and I'm also working my clothes business, but the tariffs cause import-export to be impossible for people, especially when they are a small business or they start out on their own. So it's impossible, but I firmly believe there are more than 10 solutions to one problem. So, we just have to be creative, willing to pivot, and God is responsible for our livelihood too. Don't be afraid to try new things.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think it's important for us to dream big. As a refugee from Vietnam, it's impossible, it must have been a miracle for us to leave Vietnam. Number two, I think it's so wonderful to have a great team, great supporters, great people who give you opportunities. And this is why I do whatever I could to work with refugees, displaced people, they are called permanently exiled communities, to have opportunity. I'm not going to give them everything, but the opportunity to be at the table, so they can make decisions, the opportunity to be directly involved in the global market, because people are very, very smart. So I think the value is to make it accessible for everybody to be able to achieve the best they can be. And hopefully, they will do it for not only themselves, but for the whole community, for society. Access to opportunity is so important.
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