Page 43 - Forbes - Asia (October 2019)

TRAN THI LE, 46
CEO, NutiFood
VIETNAM

Since 2013, when they became majority share-
holders of a sleepy firm called the Nutrition Food
Joint Stock Co., Le and her husband Tran Thanh
Hai have turned NutiFood into Vietnam’s leading
dairy nutrition products producer, more than
tripling sales, to 9.5 trillion dong ($408 million)
last year, and quintupling pretax profits to 828
billion dong. NutiFood operates four factories
in Vietnam that produce mostly dairy products
for baby formula and health supplements. Le is
CEO while her husband is chairman. Together,
they aim to expand NutiFood beyond Vietnam by
investing overseas through joint ventures, mergers
and acquisitions. NutiFood recently established a
joint venture with Japan’s Asahi to provide food
supplements and baby products in Vietnam under
the Wakodo NutiFood brand. —Lan Anh Nguyen

JENNY QIAN ZHIYA, 43
Founder and CEO, Luckin Coffee
CHINA

Qian founded Luckin in 2017 and has already expanded the chain to 3,000 stores. Now
Luckin is closing in on rival Starbucks—the largest coffee chain in the country—which
first opened in 1999 and now operates 3,600 stores there. Xiamen-based Luckin wants
to go even further, opening as many as 10,000 stores across China by 2021. That rapid
expansion has come with big losses—Luckin lost $475 million last year—but its growth
is attracting investors. The company in May raised $695 million in an IPO on Nasdaq,
QIAN: VICTOR J. BLUE/BLOOMBERG, LE: FORBES VIETNAM, LEONITA: COURTESY OF AVRIST
and now has a market capitalization of roughly $5.3 billion. Luckin is also venturing
abroad, partnering with Kuwait-based The Americana Group to open coffee shops in
the Middle East and India. Qian was chief operating officer of Beijing-based car-rental
and ride-hailing firm UCAR before she started Luckin. —Yue Wang

ANNA LEONITA, 47
President, Avrist Assurance
INDONESIA

Leonita’s career took off in 2011 when she was put in charge of the investment
portfolio at Indonesian life insurer Avrist Assurance. Five years later she was
named director of the insurer’s asset management unit, where she built her
own investment team. Within a year, assets under management soared 169%
to 2.2 trillion rupiah ($161 million) and Avrist’s number of customers nearly
tripled, to just under 1,000. In 2018, Leonita became the only woman on the
company’s board. Last year net profits rose 47% to 249 billion rupiah from
a year earlier, on the back of fresh promotion campaigns and new bonus
schemes for sales agents. In May, she became the first female president direc-
tor in Avrist’s 44-year history. She aims to put Avrist, now Indonesia’s 24th
largest insurer by premiums, into the top 10 by 2023. —Pudji Lestari F

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