Ryan Galloway on Vietnam Tech, Cultural Borders & Teaching MBAs - E77

Ryan Galloway has been building companies in Southeast Asia for more than 10 years, with a focus on corporate development and enterprise sales. As of March 2021, his teams have raised more than 250 million USD, and have created more than 1x year-on-year revenue jumps on several occasions. 

In the technology space specifically, his most notable venture was iCare Benefits, Vietnam's first BNPL where he was business model co-founder. In charge of corporate development and enterprise sales, Ryan's teams between 2014 and 2016 raised more than 150 million USD across equity and debt, and acquired more than 1,400 corporate clients across 7 different countries. He also saw revenue increase from 0 to 65 million USD annual in 2016. 

After iCare Benefits, Ryan served concurrently as EIR to 500 Startups Vietnam Saola Batch 2 and Batch 3 accelerators, and as Chief Growth Officer for Nafoods Group (HoSE: NAF). For Saola, Ryan oversaw 13 different companies of which 75% either went on for subsequent funding or broke-even. For Nafoods Group, he raised 15 million USD from IFC and Finnfund, and his enterprise sales teams saw an increase of revenue from 24 million USD in 2018 to 64 million USD in 2020. NAF's share price increased 2.5x during the same time period. 

Ryan currently serves as corporate development director at Homebase Vietnam, a Y-Combinator company, and is advising some of the region's larger Fintech players. He earned his MBA in Global Finance from Thunderbird School of Global Management, and Juris Doctor from Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He is fluent in Vietnamese, and speaks conversational Japanese. He also started distance running during the first wave of Covid, recently clocking a 1:42 for the 2021 Salonpas Half-Marathon in Ho Chi Minh City.

Show notes at: https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/ryan-galloway

You can find the community discussion for this episode at: https://club.jeremyau.com/c/podcasts/ryan-galloway

This episode is produced by Kyle Ong.