Mở CửaOPEN DOORS
Mở Cửa · Open Doors

Talent is everywhere. Access is not.

A business does not stop growing because the woman behind it lacks ability. Sometimes, the next door is simply beyond her reach.

Mở Cửa · Open Doors connects women founders in Vietnam with sponsors who can open it.

My mother left Vietnam with one dress. No connections. No one to open a door. She is the reason this exists.

For women who have built something worth backing, but do not yet have the network to take it where it could go.

Not more advice.
Access. Advocacy. A door that opens.

The storyHow it works
My mother with my brother and me, in the doorway of our house in Saigon My mother, my brother and me. She went first.
97%

Almost every business run by a woman in Vietnam stays small. 73.9% are micro, 23.3% small.

The research names several barriers: money, markets, bias, expectation. The founders we spoke to kept naming the same one. Access: the introductions they cannot make for themselves. This pilot sets out to test whether they are right.

Figure: WISE, Supporting Women Entrepreneurs in Vietnam · An Ecosystem Perspective, 2025.
Inference: the Foundation.
Three ways in
SponsorYou have the network and the standing. One founder, twelve months, no money asked. FounderYou have built something that works. The next stage needs access you do not yet have. PartnerYou have expertise, reach or resources that can strengthen the programme.
The programme

Mở Cửa · Open Doors

Twelve months. One founder, one senior leader, one growth goal.

Cohort one is two pairs, in Saigon, beginning January 2027.

The exchange

Advice is easy to come by. A door is not.

What matters is not the advice given, but what it unlocks. Every introduction is recorded, tracked and followed through.

What each side signs up to.

Where growth stalls · Four programme areas

Financial readiness

Books, unit economics, pricing, and what makes a business fundable.

Commercial growth

Pipeline, sales process, and entering one named new market.

Management and team

Org design, first key hires, and what only the founder should do.

Professional packaging

Brand, website, and a pitch that survives a lender's questions.

The programme model

Introductions, not advice.

The businesses that grow are not always the most talented. They are the ones somebody vouched for.

A mentor

Advises from the sidelines.

No accountability for the outcome. Walks away.

An investor

Backs a company.

Takes control. Bets on equity, not on her growth.

A sponsor

Advocates. One founder, twelve months.

Opens their network and makes real introductions on her behalf.

Failure is named in advance for each side. For the founder: missed sessions, no action, missed milestones. For the sponsor: cancelled sessions, no introductions, or delegating the relationship. A six-month checkpoint reviews both, honestly.

Twelve months

Selection to showcase.

Selection

Published criteria

Criteria published in full, and candidates scored against them. Founders matched to sponsors by goal-fit.

Month 1

Diagnostic & contract

Each pair co-signs a growth contract: two to three measurable goals, milestone dates, both signatures.

Months 2–11

Working sessions

Monthly, two hours minimum, convened and facilitated by the Foundation, worked through the founder's live problem to a decision. Real numbers, not narrative.

Month 6

Honest checkpoint

At six months we decide: continue, adjust, or stop. In writing.

Month 12

Showcase

Founders present their growth stories, with numbers. The proof point, and the door to cohort two.

The pilot opens doors. The founder walks through them.
Launch · Saigon
Vietnamese Women's Day
20 October 2026
The convener

The architect of the relationship, and its referee.

Michelle Pham, founder of the MinhDuc Foundation
The convener

Michelle Pham, founder of the Foundation, convenes every pairing personally.

She is a Chief Legal Officer with more than twenty-five years of international legal and corporate experience across Australia and the UK, working at senior executive and board level. She is Deputy Chair and a trustee of an international health charity, and mentors women entrepreneurs through the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women. She knows what it means to make an introduction under her own name, and what a senior leader needs before doing the same.

Her connection to Vietnam predates the Foundation by decades. Born in Vietnam and raised in Australia, she studied law which included a semester at Hanoi University, wrote her honours thesis on whether Vietnamese boat people were economic migrants or political refugees, and later worked with International Social Services in a Vietnamese refugee camp in Hong Kong.

As convener, Michelle oversees each pairing, supports the founder, protects the sponsor's time and reputation, and keeps the relationship focused on the growth goal. Her story.

She is deliberately not the business expert in the room. The sponsors are.

By design

A pilot, with boundaries.

Cohort one is deliberately small: two founders, two sponsors. Small enough to run properly, document honestly, and examine afterwards. The boundaries the Foundation sets for itself, and what happens after cohort one, are set out under the Foundation.

Get in touch

Founders, sponsors, partners.

If you would like to find out more or would like to get involved, please reach out to us directly. The conversation starts with an email.

Start the conversation
Email
hello@minhducfoundation.com

minhducfoundation.com
Registered in London · Programme delivered in Saigon

For founders

Built for the founder who has hit a ceiling.

The programme is built for a founder who already runs a real business. Trading two years or more, generating revenue, past the idea stage. Growth has stalled for reasons she can name, and the people who could change that are not in her network. Not a pre-revenue hopeful, not a micro-trader: the woman in the middle of the market, who has earned the chance but not yet the introduction.

A Vietnamese founder told me she never lacked the vision to build her business. What she had lacked, at the hardest moments was someone in her corner, someone to call upon.

Michelle Pham with a Vietnamese founder in her studio in Saigon
Vietnamese founder, Saigon

What a founder commits

  • Ten prepared working sessions, two hours or more, across the twelve months
  • Real numbers on the table, under a confidentiality undertaking
  • Action on agreed steps between sessions
  • Her growth story, presented with numbers, at the showcase

What a founder gains

  • A sponsor matched to her goals, whose network genuinely covers them
  • Genuine introductions each quarter · customers, partners, funders
  • The convener alongside her: every session prepared and facilitated, every introduction tracked, the checkpoint refereed
  • Two to three measurable goals, and a fair reckoning against them
How selection works

Cohort one has two places. Two founders, each paired with one sponsor, for twelve months. Selection runs in four steps.

  1. Application

    Founders apply against the published criteria and name one growth goal that the right introductions could move forward.

  2. Independent assessment

    Applications are scored by the Selection Panel. Each of its three reviewers assesses the application separately against the published criteria.

  3. Interview and access exercise

    Shortlisted founders have one conversation with the Selection Panel, plus a practical exercise. It tests how they would prepare for an introduction, use it, and follow it up.

    The purpose is not to test who already has the strongest network. It is to assess judgement, preparation and the ability to turn access into meaningful opportunity.

  4. Matching

    The Selection Panel proposes a sponsor based on the founder's growth goal and the sponsor's experience, expertise and network.

    The founder and sponsor meet before anything is agreed. Either may decline the proposed match, without explanation. A pairing begins only when both choose it.

Working language. Sessions run in English, because sponsors are drawn from the international business community in Vietnam. Working English is therefore a requirement for cohort one.

Founder information. A confidentiality agreement is signed at matching, before any detail of a founder's business passes to a sponsor. Nothing shared in a session may be used for a sponsor's own commercial benefit.

The full selection criteria are published on 20 October 2026. Candidates are scored against what is published: nothing more, nothing less. Cohort one is not open for applications before that date, and no personal information is collected through this site. A privacy notice is published alongside the criteria, before any application route opens. The first cohort begins in January 2027. To talk before then, write to hello@minhducfoundation.com.

For sponsors

Two founders. Two sponsors. Twelve months.

The first cohort of Mở Cửa · Open Doors will pair two exceptional Vietnamese women founders with two senior business leaders. Each sponsor works with one founder for twelve months, focused on one specific growth goal.

No donationThe Foundation is not raising money.
No investmentNo equity, no commercial interest.
Judgement, access, reputationHarder to give. Worth more.
1:1

Advice is easy to come by. A door is not.

Mentors advise. Sponsors create access. A sponsor may challenge, advise and share experience. What sets sponsorship apart is the willingness to use a network and a reputation to create opportunities a founder could not reach on her own.

The introduction is the intervention. What follows is the measure.
What access can look like
A major customerAn investor or lenderA strategic partnerA distributorA senior hireExpertise the founder needs

The objective is not the greatest number of introductions. It is the right access at the right time, directed towards an agreed growth goal.

Who carries what

The sponsor brings

  • One founder, one year, one agreed growth goal
  • Regular working sessions, each with a purpose
  • Introductions that will move the goal forward
  • Judgement, access and reputation: what the Foundation cannot manufacture
  • No financial contribution

The Foundation carries

  • Selecting and assessing founders
  • Proposing the match and preparing the work
  • Structuring the programme and recording agreed goals
  • Following introductions and tracking what happens next
  • Holding the founder to arriving prepared and following through
A name behind the founder

What it means

Being willing, where the sponsor considers it appropriate, to create access: an introduction, a meeting, a conversation or an opportunity the founder could not readily reach herself.

What it does not mean

Guaranteeing the founder, endorsing her business or its products, or assuming responsibility for what follows from an introduction.

Every introduction remains the sponsor's decision, and is made only where the sponsor believes it is appropriate.

How founders are selected

Founders are assessed against published criteria before any match is proposed.

  1. Independent scoring

    Applications are independently scored by three reviewers forming the Selection Panel.

  2. Interview and access exercise

    Shortlisted founders have an interview and a practical exercise. It tests how they would prepare for an introduction, use it, and follow it up.

    The purpose is not to identify the founder who already has the strongest network. It is to find a founder with a business that can grow, a clear goal, and the judgement to make something of the right door once it opens.

  3. Proposed match

    The Selection Panel proposes a sponsor based on the founder's growth goal and the sponsor's experience, expertise and network.

  4. Both sides choose

    Founder and sponsor meet before anything is agreed. Either may decline the proposed match, without explanation. A pairing begins only when both choose it.

Before a sponsor commits

What is being signed?

The Growth Contract records what the founder, sponsor and Foundation have agreed to work towards.

It is a statement of commitment, not a legally enforceable agreement, and creates no financial or legal liability for the sponsor.

How is the sponsor's reputation protected?

Sponsorship is not an endorsement or guarantee of the founder or her business. Every introduction remains at the sponsor's discretion.

No payment, commission, fee or other benefit passes between a founder, sponsor or the Foundation in return for an introduction.

Introductions are recorded by date, purpose and outcome.

What information is shared?

A founder's confidential business information is not shared with a proposed sponsor until a confidentiality agreement is signed.

Information disclosed through the programme is confidential and may not be used for a sponsor's own commercial benefit.

What happens if a pairing is not working?

There is a formal six-month checkpoint at which either the founder or sponsor may end the pairing, without fault. A sponsor may also withdraw earlier by informing the convener.

If a pairing ends, the Foundation records only that it has ended. The reasons remain private between the parties.

Is a sponsor's involvement public?

Only with the sponsor's consent. Sponsors are named publicly only with written agreement. Use of an employer's name, photographs or participation in publicity requires separate consent.

A sponsor may participate in the entire programme without being publicly identified.

Where does the programme take place?

Working sessions are in English. They can be in person in Saigon or online, as the founder, the convener and the sponsor agree.

The pilot concludes with a showcase in Saigon in December 2027. Sponsors are welcome to attend, but attendance is not required.

What success looks like

The Foundation does not measure sponsorship by meetings held or introductions made. It follows what happens next, so that it can distinguish activity from consequence.

An introduction may lead to a new customer, a contract, funding, a partnership or a senior hire. What matters is whether it moves the founder toward her goal.

Day 0Introduction made, recorded by date, purpose and outcome
Day 30Followed through: did the conversation happen
Day 90Followed through again: what changed in the business
What can change for an exceptional founder when the right person opens the right door?
Cohort One
Two founders · two sponsors
Begins January 2027
A two-way relationship

Sponsorship is not intended to be one-directional. Sponsors should expect to learn as well as contribute. These are women building businesses in Vietnam, with first-hand knowledge of its customers and markets.

Both sponsors in cohort one will help evaluate the pilot and say what should change before a second cohort.

Founding Sponsors

If they choose to be recognised, the two individuals who sponsored the Foundation's first two founders.

The ask

The Foundation is seeking two senior business leaders with the judgement, standing and network to create access that would otherwise remain out of reach.

There is no financial ask. Only one question: who is willing to open the right door?

Sponsorship is by invitation. Enquiries may be directed to hello@minhducfoundation.com.

About the Foundation

The story behind MinhDuc.

My mother in her áo dài, on the day she left Vietnam
Her áo dài

I am Michelle Pham. This Foundation exists to put senior business networks behind Vietnamese women who have already built something. It began with my mother.

Her áo dài was one of the few things she carried out of Vietnam.

She had no one to vouch for her. What she had were her hands, her grit, and a belief that the next generation would have more.

She was right.

I was born in Vietnam, grew up and was educated in Australia, and later made my home in the UK. Three countries shaped me. Along the way, people believed in me and put their names behind mine.

An introduction. A recommendation. Sometimes simply: I know her. Take the meeting.

Small things that changed what was possible for me.

I have always wanted to give something back to Vietnam. Not from a distance, and not simply by writing a cheque. I wanted to give something of myself.

Recently, at Harvard Business School, three words stayed with me: Knowing. Doing. Being. Especially doing.

Good intentions are easy. Doing something with them is harder.

Over a lifetime, we build more than experience. We build relationships, trust, and the ability to make a call that gets answered.

I decided to put mine to work.

That became MinhDuc. The Foundation, and its first programme: Mở Cửa · Open Doors.

Minh Đức means bright virtue: doing good openly, so others can follow.

This is my trả ơn.
My way of giving back.

Michelle Pham · Founder

The Foundation

Built to be accountable.

Structure

MinhDuc Foundation is a private company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales in 2026. It is governed by its directors. An advisory board is being formed and will be named as appointments are confirmed.

Pilot partners: British Chamber of Commerce Vietnam and ACCA. What each contributes.

Funding

The pilot is self-funded. Sponsors contribute access, not money. The Foundation takes no fees, equity or share of revenue. Any future external funding, and its source, will be disclosed.

Boundaries

The Foundation will not:

  • Ask sponsors for money
  • Charge founders, in fees, equity or any share of what they build
  • Treat founders as deal flow. Investment interest ends a pairing
  • Scale before proving the model works

Accountability

Cohort one will be evaluated and the findings published in the first quarter of 2028. What worked. What did not. Whether the model has earned a second cohort.

Trust requires transparency. So does the Foundation.

Pilot partners

The Foundation is small. Its partners are not.

Two institutions support the first cohort of Mở Cửa · Open Doors. They bring reach and standards the Foundation could not build on its own, and independent judgement it should not hold alone.

British Chamber of Commerce Vietnam

The room where the sponsors are.

  • Sponsor introductions from its member network
  • Independent participation in the Selection Panel
  • Access to the wider membership for founders and workshops

BritCham is the Foundation's route to senior business leaders working in Vietnam. Sponsorship is by invitation, and most invitations begin there.

ACCA

The numbers behind the growth goal.

  • Professional standards and financial readiness
  • The diagnostic that begins each founder's pairing
  • Workshops for founders during the pilot

Every pairing opens with an honest look at the founder's numbers. ACCA sets the standard that work is held to.

What a pilot partner is

A pilot partner contributes capability, reach or independent judgement to the programme. Partners are not sponsors and are not paired with founders. They take no fee and receive none.

What the Foundation gives in return

Named acknowledgement here and in the pilot report. A seat at the December 2027 showcase. Sight of what the pilot learns before it is published, and the chance to say where it is wrong.

Becoming a partner

The Foundation is open to institutions and specialists with something the programme needs and does not have. Additional partners will be named as agreements are confirmed. Write to hello@minhducfoundation.com.

Privacy

What this site collects, and what it does not.

Last updated 13 August 2026.

Who is responsible

MinhDuc Foundation, a private company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales, company number 17325378, registered office Unit 3, Ibex House, 2a Leytonstone Road, London E15 1SE. The Foundation is the data controller for the purposes of UK data protection law.

This site collects nothing

There are no forms, no accounts, no sign-ups and no payments. The Foundation sets no cookies and runs no analytics or advertising trackers on this site.

Fonts are loaded from Google

Typefaces are served by Google Fonts. Loading them sends the visitor's IP address and browser details to Google, which is a transfer outside the UK. Nothing else is shared, and the Foundation receives none of it. Blocking third-party requests in the browser prevents it.

Email

Anyone who writes to hello@minhducfoundation.com shares whatever they choose to put in that message. It is used to answer the enquiry and to keep a record of the exchange, on the basis of legitimate interest. We keep the correspondence while the enquiry is live and for two years after, then delete it. It is not sold, rented, or used for marketing.

Applications

Applications to Mở Cửa · Open Doors are not open, and no application data is collected through this site. A fuller notice covering application and programme data is published alongside the selection criteria on 20 October 2026, before any application route opens.

Rights

Anyone whose personal data the Foundation holds can ask for a copy, ask for it to be corrected or deleted, object to its use, or ask us to limit how it is used. Requests go to hello@minhducfoundation.com and are answered within one month. Complaints may be made to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Changes

This notice will change as the programme opens. The date at the top records when it was last revised.