Three days, two workshops, one question: Who runs the next phase of Vietnam’s growth

CHRO Series Vietnam returns to Ho Chi Minh City from 9 to 11 September 2026, with a programme built around a gap employers in Vietnam can no longer defer: capital and workforce ambition are moving faster than the country’s supply of senior local leaders.

Organised by HRM Asia and held at Rex Hotel Saigon, the 2026 edition runs under the theme The Augmented Workforce: Maximising Progress Through FDI, Tech Integration and Strategic Upskilling, and expands into a three-day format – a workshop on 9 September, the main conference on 10 September, and a second workshop on 11 September. More than 150 CHROs are expected, with the agenda structured around four themes: localising C-suite leadership, mass upskilling for the AI era, the Gen Z employee experience, and ESG and labour compliance.

Conference day opens with a panel on blue-collar retention in Vietnam’s industrial hubs, covering algorithmic shift scheduling, non-cash packages such as subsidised housing and transport, and milestone-based bonuses that reward tenure over short-term output. Ho Thi Bach Quyen, Head of Culture and People in Vietnam and Head of Talent Acquisition, Emerging Markets, at STADA Pymepharco, joins the discussion.

A fireside chat follows on what happens when Western corporate culture meets Vietnamese working norms, examining how to encourage upward feedback in traditionally top-down teams, adopt global HR policy to local customs, and shift performance reviews toward team-centric conversations. Tram Nguyen, Head of People at Marou – Faiseurs de Chocolat; Thuy Nguyen, CHRO at Sun Life Vietnam; and Vy Nguyen, Group HR Director at Wink Hotels, are confirmed.

Roundtable discussions run through the afternoon. Pham Thi My Ngoc, Head of Human Resources and General Affairs at Vietnam Suzuki Corporation, leads a session on rebuilding Gen Z loyalty through micro-progressions rather than multi-year career paths, while Nguyen Thuy Ha, Head of People and Culture, Vietnam at PropertyGuru, leads one on elevating middle managers to the regional stage.

The programme then turns to productivity, with a panel arguing for measuring learning velocity over hours logged, the role of flexible and project-based work in unblocking hiring, and EVP as a retention lever for millennials and Gen Z talent. Speaking are An Nguyen Hieu Truong, Executive Vice-President, Head of People and Culture at Suntory Pepsi Co Vietnam Beverage; Hieu Tran, Head of People and Culture at Opella; and Ton That Anh Vu, Chief People Officer at Manulife Vietnam.

Closing the conference, a panel on the green talent shortage looks at ESG-led employer branding, fast-tracked internal certifications for logistics and operations managers moving into green supply-chain auditing, and frameworks for transferring environmental expertise from global offices to local teams. Nhung Dinh Kim, Head of HR at Nafoods Group, and Doan Le, HR Director at Bosch Global Software Technologies Vietnam, are confirmed.

Two full-day workshops bookend the conference. On 9 September, Burak Oc, Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour and HR at Singapore Management University’s Lee Kong Chian School of Business, runs Beyond KPIs: Performance, Motivating and Collective Leadership in the AI-Era Organisation, treating organisational structure as a hypothesis to be tested and separating behavioural performance from numerical outcomes. On 11 September, Joanne Flinn, Chairperson of The ESG Institute, runs Accelerated Capability: Building AI-Augmented Leaders at the Speed of Growth, which frames the leadership shortfall as a speed problem and includes a session on Vietnam’s Personal Data Protection Law, in force since 1 January 2026, and its bearing on AI in hiring and employee monitoring.

For more information on CHRO Series Vietnam 2026 or to register, visit https://chroseries.com/country/vietnam/.