The position
Running continuously since early 2013, Young Marketers builds both halves of the discipline at once — brand development and business — and holds self-belief, character and manners to the same standard as craft. It is judged against a conservatoire, a medical residency, a bar association. The Contest and the Elite Programme are instruments of it, not the category itself.
Formed, not trained.
The essence
The vision
2045 is the centenary of the nation, and the year Vietnam has set for itself to arrive hùng cường — strong, prosperous, and unmistakably its own. A country is not known by what it produces alone. It is known by the story it tells about itself, and by whether anyone can be trusted to tell it.
The mission · Running since 2013
What it looks like when it is true
Vietnamese work is taught as a case in Singapore, Bangkok and Jakarta — not translated from them.
“Vietnamese” before strategy or creative carries meaning abroad, as “Japanese” and “Korean” came to.
The people setting the industry's standard — in brands, agencies and policy — largely passed through this room.
Core values — stated as identity, not aspiration
Three, because a value is only core if we would hold it once it became a competitive disadvantage.
both fundamentals, held as one discipline
Marketing is not a knack. It is a discipline, and its two halves — building a brand and running a business — are one subject. A marketer who cannot read a P&L is a decorator with a budget. A marketer who reads one but cannot build meaning is an accountant with a media plan.
the reason we hold the licence
Every campaign changes what somebody believes, buys or wants — so it is either worth doing or it is not, and it hit the KPI is no answer. A career in this trade should add up to something, and so should a season of ours.
the standard, held when it costs
Every value is only real at the moment it becomes expensive. Mettle is not a third virtue standing beside the other two; it is what the other two cost.
What we say out loud, and are held to
Nobody sets out wanting a job in marketing. They want a career that means something — and they suspect, correctly, that they will only become that kind of marketer standing next to someone who already is.
We are not a competition and we are not a course. We are the ground on which a profession is formed.
Marketing is a discipline, not a knack — taught, examined, defended.
A marketer's ceiling is set by understanding people, not platforms — and character sets the ceiling above that.
Purpose and profit are not opponents: a weak call satisfies one, a strong call satisfies both.
The young are not the future of this industry. They are its conscience in the present.
AI made output cheap and judgement priceless — so we build judgement, and we examine for it.
Every Vietnamese marketer is carrying Vietnam into somebody's mind, intended or not.
The mark
The wordmark says who we are. The mark says what happens here. It points down — a season opens wide and closes at a single point; formation is a narrowing. A second triangle rises inside it, reaching the top edge: you do not grow by escaping the narrowing, you grow inside it. One level line runs through the middle — above it, what a cohort is put through; below it, who walks out.
Balance is not something a triangle represents. It is something a triangle is.
The four it started with
Founder
CMO across Biti's, Giao Hàng Tiết Kiệm and Gojek Vietnam. Founder and former Chairman of dentsu Redder — Vietnam's No.1 creative agency for seven consecutive years (2018–2024) and 200+ international awards. Top 50 CMOs in Asia-Pacific (2021), Top 100 Global CMOs (2022). Founder of Young Marketers since 2013. Today Deputy General Director of Van Lang Education Group, Chief Global Strategy & Marketing Officer at Xperse Global, and Chair of Strategy at C+P Consulting Asia.
Co-Founder
One of Vietnam's most respected marketing minds, with 20+ years building FMCG brands at scale. Senior Vice President of Marketing at Suntory PepsiCo Vietnam, then Asia Regional Senior Marketing Director for PepsiCo; previously CMO of Masan Consumer and Masan Beverage; earlier Indochina Regional Marketing Director at Vinataba–Philip Morris and Senior Marketing Director at Unilever Vietnam.
Founding Member
Twenty years built inside Unilever, Samsung and Microsoft, then tested again in start-up conditions. Marketing Director of Shell Vietnam and of Samsung Mobile Vietnam, and Customer Marketing Director at Unilever Vietnam. Now Managing Director of Orange Marketing Agency. Vietnam's sole representative on the Spikes Asia jury.
Founding Member
20+ years leading marketing and general management across multinationals and major local businesses. Regional Marketing Director for Coca-Cola Indochina and South East Asia; General Manager of Provence Vietnam; Chief Growth Officer at Ninety Eight. Now Managing Director of Puratos Grand-Place Indochina and Managing Partner of Young Marketers.
The Elite Development Network
Where they are now
dentsu Redder · Unilever · Google · Nestlé · Suntory PepsiCo · Bain & Company · Grab · MoMo · Shopee · Heineken · P&G · C+P Consulting Asia
