The beauty of accounting

Loan Le, director of the Loan Le Auditing-Consulting and Training Company in Ho Chi Minh City, and one of the first ACCA members in Vietnam, tells Colette Steckel why she always wanted to become a successful businesswoman

'Sorry I'm late,' exclaims Loan, hurrying up to the table we've reserved for lunch in a downtown restaurant. 'Caught in traffic?' I ask, recalling how it seemed as if every one of the city's five million residents was out on the roads at midday. 'No, I was just looking after one of my clients,' replies Loan, smiling. One gets the impression that Loan, with her softly-spoken English and gentle manners, takes prodigious care of all those who come to her for financial and accounting advice at her young yet flourishing firm in Ho Chi Minh City.

Her business is one of a burgeoning number of private sector firms in Vietnam, which have emerged in recent years to provide an array of financial services to the myriad homegrown businesses and foreign companies in the country. Eighteen auditing firms were registered in Vietnam at the end of 1998, including the Big Five, as they were, although Loan puts the figure at more than 30 today. 'The competition between firms is tough these days and fees have dropped as a result,' she laments. 'I could never compete for the very big companies' audits because of the big international firms, so most of my clients are small or medium-sized businesses owned by Vietnamese and foreign companies. But I'm starting to get larger Vietnamese and foreign clients. The trouble is that the Asian crisis in 1997/98 halted foreign direct investment.'

Although the region is starting to recover from the crippling effects of the Asian crisis, foreign investment still remains weak. Vietnam, however, is confident that it will attract foreign business once again to its shores. This is in part due to the revival of the Government's Doi Moi renovation policy, which aims to move Vietnam from a planned to a market economy. Despite patchy economic progress in the early years and a setback in the late 1990s, Vietnam, which recorded economic growth of 7% in 2002, is back on track with its reforms to reduce poverty, restructure state-owned enterprises, improve the climate for private enterprise and strengthen the banking system. With hoped-for membership to the World Trade Organisation in 2005 likely to speed up the pace of reform, Vietnam is fast becoming one of the most promising countries in Asia in which to do business. Loan is vehement that, as a businesswoman, there is nowhere else she would rather be. 'This is a new market which will bring a lot of opportunities. If you have the will to succeed, you'll do well here.'

Loan learned much about running a business from her parents, in particular her father, to whom she refers as a man with a 'strong will' to succeed. He was among the first to own a private company in Vietnam, manufacturing plastic commodity goods and flashlights from his factory based in Ho Chi Minh City. As a child, Loan met some of the most powerful men in Vietnam - the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Vo Chi Cong, and two general-secretaries of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Le Duan and Nguyen Van Linh - who visited her father's renowned factory and posed for photographs. But by the time she started studying for an English degree at the Teacher Training University of Ho Chi Minh City, her family's business had gone under and her father had filed for bankruptcy. 'It was a difficult time,' rues Loan. 'But that whole experience had a big effect on me. It made me all the more determined that I would succeed.'

While at university, a friend, to whom Loan says she is eternally grateful, recommended a career in accounting. On graduating, she accepted a position as assistant to the chief accountant of a joint venture, where she stayed for about a year before joining Baker Hughes Inc, an oil and gas company, as chief accountant and office administrator. A colleague suggested that if she was serious about a career in accounting, she should study for the ACCA qualification. At that time, although the qualification was known in Vietnam, ACCA was yet to establish an office in the country (1). Undeterred, Loan secured sponsorship from her employer and devoted her time and energy to a four-and-a-half-year programme of self-study, travelling to examination centres in Asia and Europe to sit her papers.

Just to make life even more challenging, she opened a small textiles workshop at the same time to hone her business skills. 'I too have a strong will, just like my father,' notes Loan. 'And I think I'm a dedicated person as well. Back then I was juggling so many things. A full day at the office, going home to look after my husband and young daughter, running the workshop and studying for my ACCA exams. It was tough.' Things got tougher when Loan became pregnant with her second child in the run-up to her finals. Five-and-a-half months into her pregnancy, she flew to Hong Kong to sit some examinations and, two months after giving birth, she was in Vietnam to take her finals in June 1998. 'I think I managed to get only a couple of hours' sleep a night during exam time,' she recalls. Dedicated is an understatement.

Loan returned to employment after her maternity leave to gain as much industry experience as possible to aid her ambition to run an accounting business. She also had to sit the Vietnamese CPA qualification - a pre-requisite for would-be practitioners. 'From the very first moment that I chose to study ACCA, I decided that I would have my own auditing firm,' she says. Benefiting from the Government's recent Enterprise Law, which aims to stimulate private enterprise by simplifying the registration of domestic businesses, Loan was able to open her sought-after firm in 2000, financed entirely out of her own pocket.

In the first year, besides setting up the business, Loan decided to increase public awareness of her company by writing a book on forecasting, budgeting and decision-making; a 600-page epic brandishing the company logo on the back cover. 'I managed to get the book published and it sold well,' remarks Loan. 'I was surprised really. It's almost US$20, and that's expensive by Vietnamese standards.' By the time she got her piece of non-fiction into print, business had started picking up and at great speed. Today she employs 20 staff and has expanded her range of business services beyond audit to include consultancy and training, to an ever-growing client portfolio. Her revenue, however, she keeps under wraps.

Loan puts her success down to her professionalism and her experience, but she points out that her ACCA qualification has been an asset in her career. 'When a client hears that I am an ACCA, they trust me. They know that I have a thorough knowledge of accounting and that I am able to understand their business. That not only helps them, but me as well. My qualification really gives me a competitive advantage over many small audit firms in Vietnam.'

Last year Loan added to her academic achievements by completing a master's degree in accounting at South Bank University in London, where she spent three months before returning to Vietnam to write her thesis. Her next goal is to take a PhD, preferably at Oxford or Harvard, provided she can improve on her GMAT scores (which are currently at 640 over 800). 'I think it's important, as a director of a firm, to improve my knowledge of accounting. And clients appreciate that as well. But studying outside Vietnam is also a good chance for me to learn about different educational systems, which helps with training my own staff,' says Loan.

For all her professional successes, Loan has no hesitation in citing motherhood as the greatest accomplishment of her 33 years. Although being a homemaker while juggling a career is far from being easy. 'It's important for me to spend time with my two daughters, to read them bedtime stories and just be there for them. And, although I have a good husband, I like to take care of him too. With my career taking up a lot of my time, the only way I can do all of this is to sleep less,' explains Loan. Does she ever have time to relax? 'No, not really. But if I'm lucky, I'll have the time to paint my nails,' she adds, in a brief nod to her former days as first runner-up in the Miss Ho Chi Minh beauty contest of 1989 and Miss Undergraduate of the Miss Undergraduate beauty contest in Ho Chi Minh City in the same year. She giggles before becoming serious. 'The way I look at it is if you work hard and do your best when you're young, then you'll have plenty of time to relax in the future. And I'm looking forward to that!'

Reference
(1) The ACCA Vietnam office opened in Ho Chi Minh City in January 2002.