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On a visit to rural Vietnam a few years ago, <strong>Don Lam</strong> met with a mother who had just lost her 8-year-old daughter to a heart condition because she did not have the money for surgery. When he discovered that it would have cost USD3,000 to save her, Lam decided to act.<br />
 <br /> As the founding partner of <keyword id="3238618" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vina-Capital">Vina Capital</keyword>, one of Vietnam's leading asset management groups, Lam adopted an attitude of giving back to the communities in which he works. He has taken mainstream financial regulatory requirements of ethics, transparency and fairness, and applied them to a social business model that promotes good.<br />
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"If we're going to invest in the community then we should start giving back to the community," says Lam, a member of <a href="http://www.ypo.org/">Young Presidents’ Organization</a> since 2010.<br />
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The latest venture the Lotus Impact Fund started in 2013 is effectively an impact investment fund. Lotus Impact actively invests in private enterprises that help solve social and environmental problems. Projects that produce catering graduates, business graduates for rural economic growth and clean-water projects are funded through a process that merges local market knowledge with financial and social analysis.<br />
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"We focus on high social intent but not necessarily a high return," explains Lam. "The measure of social impact is more important to us."<br />
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Vina Capital's investor base is mainly in Europe, where investors admire the positive developments Lam has introduced. "Many of our investors visit us and say they want to become involved," says Lam. "They tell me that if they're looking at two funds, both being equal, they'd choose us because of our social impact."<br />
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With a succession of global financial crises behind us, Lam has sage advice for how we should view money, "as a tool to create stability in whatever you do. The money we generate should be looked at from a wider investment perspective. Not following traditional finance trends and focusing beyond short-term profit can result in better profits down the line."<br />
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Lam believes that the key in business is to lead by example. "You can talk as much as you want but if you don't actually do it yourself then it won't have any effect."<br />
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Lam's Investment Check List:<br />
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·         The first thing Vina Capital does is look at the people they are investing in, not the industry. What they manufacture is less important than the people managing the business. "The people who manage the business might run a fantastic operation but if they're not ethical, it will go sideways very quickly."<br />
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·         Vina Capital looks at how companies treat the community around them. "It's important in the long term that these businesses have a sense of social responsibility."<br />
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·         They do not invest in businesses that make a lot of money by cutting corners, like in in Bangladesh or Pakistan, where factories collapse and workers are killed. "You'll make money in the short term, but the focus should be on a long-term return for your investment."<br />
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(The article is authored by Grant Schreiber | <a href="file:///C:/Users/Bneal/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/Content.Outlook/04KBWJST/real-leaders.com">Real Leaders</a>)<br />
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<em><keyword id="852310" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="YPO">YPO</keyword> (Young Presidents’ Organization) is a not-for-profit, global network of young chief executives connected through the shared mission of becoming Better Leaders Through Education and Idea Exchange™. For more information, visit </em><a href="http://www.ypo.org/"><em>www.ypo.org</em></a><em>.</em><br />
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 (Image: Wikipedia)<br />
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The True Cost of Capital: People

In 2016, <keyword id="13486" type="COUNTRY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vietnam">Vietnam</keyword> will mark the 30th anniversary of the launch of the Đổi Mới reforms, which marked the beginning of Vietnam’s efforts to reform and transform its economy. At the time, the country was still recovering from decades of conflict, was insular, and overly dependent on long-time allies such as the Soviet Union. In just one generation, Vietnam has become one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and trade has played a starring role in that transformation.<br />
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In a few short years, Vietnam has become a manufacturing hub, particularly for the electronics industry and the apparel and footwear industry, with most of the products exported to markets around the world. Foreign direct investment in Vietnam continues to be robust, with billions of dollars being invested by companies from Korea, Japan, Thailand, the United States and other countries, with the majority going towards manufacturing. Vietnam’s agricultural products are also in demand around the world, and the country is one of the world’s top exporters of rice, coffee, fish and shrimp, and a range of other agricultural products.<br />
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<strong>Trends in Vietnam’s GDP per capita and exports, 1986 – 2016</strong><br />
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It was just about a year ago that negotiations around the landmark TPP were successfully concluded, and there was great fanfare about the benefits it is expected to bring to Vietnam. Since then, the political situation in the US has evolved in a way that makes passage unlikely this year – if ever. Likewise, Vietnam’s free trade agreement with the EU is a far-reaching pact that is expected to go into effect in 2018, but Brexit has called into question the whole concept of the EU; will other nations follow the UK’s example?<br />
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Another multilateral pact, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), encompasses ASEAN’s ten members plus six other countries including India and China, and remains under negotiation nearly five years since it was first proposed; Singapore Prime Minister Lee recently said that talks were progressing rather slowly. None of this would be happening had Vietnam’s government not made a concerted effort to open up the country and build relationships with countries around the world.<br />
<br /> In 2007, Vietnam joined the <keyword id="126959" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="World-Trade-Organization">World Trade Organization</keyword>, marking the start of its integration into the global economy. Since then, the country has negotiated and/or entered into 16 free trade agreements, on both a bi- and multilateral basis. Recent agreements include those with Korea, the Russian Federation, the <keyword id="3145781" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="ASEAN-Economic-Community">ASEAN Economic Community</keyword> (AEC), the EU, and of course the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).<br />
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<strong>What does all of this mean to Vietnam? </strong>Clearly the possible failure of TPP would be disappointing. Meanwhile the effects of Brexit remain to be seen. Regardless of what happens, there is no chance that Vietnam’s growth will be stopped – trade has become the cornerstone for its economy, and I would expect the government to enter into bilateral agreements with those TPP members with which it does not currently have agreements, and will negotiate a separate agreement with the UK at the appropriate time. But all of these developments point to the extreme difficulty of negotiating, let alone eventually ratifying multinational agreements, and the future of large economic communities could be called into question.<br />
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The progress made by ASEAN nations over the past two decades has been nothing short of breathtaking, and trade has been and will continue to be a critical part of the region’s ongoing development. Trade encompasses so much more than simply producing and selling goods – it is a catalyst for progress, for greater exposure to and integration with the world, and ultimately for improving peoples’ lives. It is a multi-faceted topic, and that is why I am excited to be a part of the panel discussion at this year’s Insights ASEAN Summit.<br />
<br /> (The article is authored by By <keyword id="3791307" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="don-lam">Don Lam</keyword>, CEO and Founding Partner for VinaCapital, who is also a Member of <keyword id="852310" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="YPO">YPO</keyword> since 2010)<br />
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(YPO is a global community of chief executives dedicated to becoming Better Leaders through Lifelong Learning and Idea ExchangeTM. The YPO platform provides more than 24,000 members in more than 130 countries. For more information, visit www.ypo.org.)

The future of trade and growth in Southeast Asia

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/impossible-foods-meatless-burger-how-its-made-2016-10">Impossible Foods</a>, a tech company on a mission to reinvent our definition of meat, is launching its first large-scale production facility to help bring its plant-based "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/impossible-foods-burger-heme-secret-ingredient-2016-10">bloody</a>" burgers to the masses.</p><p>Based in Oakland, California, the factory will produce at least one million pounds of meatless meat per month - or four million burgers - once the site is up and running later in 2017.</p><p>At an event to unveil the factory, CEO and founder Pat Brown called it "the birthplace of a whole new industry."</p><p>Impossible Foods, which has raised $182 million in venture capital from the likes of Bill Gates, Google Ventures, and Khosla Ventures, has been surrounded by buzz since its burger debuted at Chef David Chang's restaurant Momofuku Nishi last summer. Foodies travel from far-away places to try the burger at the eight (mostly high-end) restaurants that serve it, while others <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/impossible-foods-burger-locations-2017-2">track its whereabouts</a> with the perseverence of Apple fans scouring for iPhone 8 leaks.</p><p>The Oakland factory will increase Impossible Foods' production capacity 250 times, allowing the company to supply burgers to more than 1,000 restaurants in the future and introduce its flagship <keyword id="6354851" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Retail">retail</keyword> product within the next few years.</p><p>The facility offers the first evidence that Impossible Foods will not remain a boutique, Silicon Valley-esque obsession and may actually meet demand in a wider market.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Impossible Foods was founded on the idea that there's a better way to satisfy people who enjoy meat. The world's population could reach nine billion people by 2050, and there aren't enough resources on the planet to support sustainable animal agriculture at that scale. As it stands, animal agriculture takes up about a third of the world's land, and is responsible for 15% of greenhouse gas emissions.</p><p>Brown, a molecular biologist, left his teaching job at Stanford University in 2009 to make a veggie burger that meat-lovers will actually want to eat. The Impossible Burger is made of wheat and potato protein, coconut oil, additives found in processed foods, and a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/impossible-foods-burger-heme-secret-ingredient-2016-10">not-so-secret ingredient</a> called heme <span>- </span>a molecule that carries oxygen through the bloodstream in animals and through energy-producing mechanisms in plants. It smells and even bleeds like real meat.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Several Business Insider reporters, from the most ardent <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-the-impossible-burger-tastes-like-2016-7">meat-eaters</a> to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-impossible-foods-burger-review-vegetarian-2016-8">vegetarians</a>, have tried the Impossible Burger. The reviews were overwhelmingly positive. Kim Renfro, who stopped eating meat 10 years ago, said it "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-impossible-foods-burger-review-vegetarian-2016-8">immediately transported [her] back to meaty memories</a><span>."</span></p><p>I tried the Impossible Burger for my second time at the factory's opening. The patty has crispy, caramelized bits on the outside and a pink, juicy center. For me, this biggest giveaway that I was eating something other than beef was the slightly rubbery, mushroom-like texture.</p><p>As the company gains the ability to produce at scale, its new challenge may be convincing average Americans to make the switch from meat to an alternative. Most veggie burgers resemble hockey pucks more than beef, as Brown likes to say. Still, he's optimistic.</p><p>"Being made from animals has never been part of the value proposition of meat. It's just been inseparable from what consumers do value, which is deliciousness, nutritional profile, and so forth," Brown tells Business Insider. "As soon as they experience [the burger], they can now disconnect things they value from the way it's made." In other words, eating is believing.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The company will continue to roll out the burger in restaurants, where Brown says consumers can expect consistently great experiences trying the burger.</p><p>Starting this week, Californians can find the Impossible Burger in three new restaurants: KronnerBurger in Oakland, Public House in San Francisco, and Vina Enoteca in Palo Alto. The burger will appear on the menu at 11 restaurants nationwide by the end of the year.</p><p>The company fields a huge volume of requests from restaurants that want to serve the burger, according to Brown. Impossible Foods is deliberate in its selections.</p><p>"The chefs we work with aren't just great chefs, they're great meat-chefs. It's a very effective way to communicate to consumers that if these people are willing to put their reputations on the line to serve this product, you can have confidence that you're not going to have a crappy experience," Brown says.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/king-burger-hamburger-cheese-calories-recipe-mac-2017-2">A top New York City chef shows how to make the perfect burger</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="lqanNyOTE6kQY3qjSScfW3pZn3-e8s6v" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

A startup that sells 'bloody' plant-based burgers has a new factory that can make 4 million burgers a month

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The True Cost of Capital: People

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The future of trade and growth in Southeast Asia

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A startup that sells 'bloody' plant-based burgers has a new factory that can make 4 million burgers a month

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