Tech guy at heart with biz mindset

Thong, Nguyen

Story of a tech-guy at heart who wants to do more

About me

  • Tech-guy at heart with business-oriented mindset
  • Can talk. Can do
  • Can sell. Can build
  • Embrace changes and open to challenges
  • Can make people laugh
  • Integrity

Business-oriented mindset. Can sell

  • At P&G, as IT Manager
    • Sold "IT projects" to other stakeholders (sales team, distributors). Overcame the "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" mindset
    • Sold the "value of IT" so that people recognize IT force not as a support team but a key partners
  • At HP, as Market Development Manager
    • In-charge of Inkjet printer business in Vietnam, I worked with and sell to various parties (regional team, local distributors/partners and ultimately end-customers).
Working as Market Development Manager, Thong has shown his excellent analytic skills, ability to identify problems and to come up with innovative ideas, solutions to fix them. On the other hand, his capability to give new ideas to generate demands for the products portfolio he manages is unique. I would say Thong is a smart person who never stops coming up with new ideas and new way of doing things differently.
Nguyen Ba Quynh (ex-GM - Imaging Printing Group at HP, current GM - Software Group at IBM)

Tech guy at heart. Can do

Embrace changes

  • Serious
    • Persuade, prototyping and roll-out projects that enables sales team to analyze more useful data at P&G. Later rolled out to other countries.
    • Believe that improvement doesn't need to come from technology but people and process
  • Fun
    • Installed MacOSX on my Thinkpad. Installed Android on my iPhone
    • Compiled a slide without using PowerPoint (this)

On getting things done

  • At P&G, managed a team of 10, worked with various stakeholders to deliver projects that spanned accross 50+ sites in Vietnam.
  • At HP, get people (from both internal & external sales team) to effectively sell the "non-interesting" products

What's in it for you and me ?

  • For you
    • Get good salesman or good engineer... TOUGH
    • Get a good tech-guy with business-oriented mindset... A BIT TOUGHER ? - maybe I can help ? : )
  • For me, I'm looking for
    • Product-related positions (operation or sales)
    • Consumer products (you see what you make)

What else ?

Appendix

On what I read...

Books
  • Don't make me think (UX)
  • The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding (Marketing)
  • Start small, stay small (Lean)
  • Rework (Lean)
  • Good to Great (Business)
  • Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management (Management)

Used to read TechCrunch, now move on to HackerNews