Gary Lawrence is the Managing Partner and founder of Excelsior. He previously served on the Boards of Office Depot Korea, CJ Hello Co., Ltd.  and DC Chemical in South Korea, Tony Wear (Shanghai) Fashion Co., Ltd in China, Sanlih E-Television and Tainan Enterprises in Taiwan, Zest Health Clubs and Downer EDI in Australia and Nation Multimedia Group in Thailand. Prior to Excelsior, Gary was a Managing Director in the Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking Group, based in Hong Kong. He also worked with Tiger Management in New York as a Managing Director, and prior to joining Tiger, was in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department of Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New York. Prior to joining Goldman, Gary was an attorney with White & Case. He holds an L.L.B. from the McGill University Faculty of Law and a B.A. from Yale University. In addition, he received an M.A. from Oxford University, attending as Rhodes Scholar. In January 2005, Mr. Lawrence was selected by the National Collegiate Athletic Association as one of six NCAA Silver Anniversary Honorees, an award given annually to six former U.S. collegiate student-athletes who have made significant business and community contributions in the twenty-five years since graduation.

Chinh Hoang is the Managing Partner and Head of Vietnam with Excelsior, having joined Excelsior in 2017, and brings to the team 26 years of investment and operational experience in the Vietnamese market.  Mr. Hoang is based in Ho Chi Minh City, led the Investment Team for Fund I and is a member of the Investment Committee.  He is currently a Director of the Boards of Hasaki, SIS, VCCorp and ActiveNetwork.  Prior to joining Excelsior, he was the CEO of TruMan Holdings, a conglomerate based in Vietnam with subsidiaries in textile manufacturing, aquaculture export and induatrial/real estates businesses.  Before that Mr. Hoang worked as a Managing Director of Kusto Investment Management, a global natural resources, construction and agri-business investor, where he ran a number of domestic Vietnamese portfolio companies. Before Kusto, Mr. Hoang was a Director at Saigon Asset Management (“SAM”), responsible for managing the Vietnam Equity Holdings, a mid-market strategy public equity fund listed in Frankfurt.  Before SAM, he started his investment career and became a director, portfolio manager and investment committee member at Mekong Capital, a private equity firm focused on Vietnam investments. While at Mekong, he worked on the Mobile World deal, among other deals. Over his private equity career at Mekong, Kusto and TruMan, Mr. Hoang was actively involved in the investment of around $141mn into 15 Vietnamese companies, of which a majority have been realised or partially realised. Throughout his career, he has been an active investor, has been involved operationally in a number of businesses and has deep experience exiting investments including through IPO listing and trade sales. Mr. Hoang has served on the Boards of Directors of 18 Vietnamese companies, including Mobile World and Coteccons and has coordinated ESG and financial compliance for several investments.  Before his investment career, Mr. Hoang was among the first graduate engineers hired by Ford Motor Company in 1997 for the Ford Vietnam Assembly Plant in Hai Duong (the largest and first US investment project in Vietnam after relations normalized) where he trained as a process improvement specialist and was among Vietnam’s few certified Six Sigma Black Belt and Lean experts. He holds an MBA from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia.

Van Nguyen is a Managing Director with Excelsior, having joined Excelsior in 2019, and brings to the team 21 years of business experience in Vietnam.  Ms. Nguyen is a key senior member of the Investment Team, sits on the Investment Committee and is a Director of 30Shine.  Prior to joining Excelsior, she was the CEO and CIO of BIDV-Vietnam Partners Investment Management (“BVIM”), a private equity investment company where she had worked for 12 years, having joined as an Investment Manager in 2006.  Over her time at BVIM, Ms. Nguyen was responsible for investing and monitoring investment opportunities primarily in the banking, insurance, consumer goods and retail sectors, serving on the Boards of several companies and helping investee company managements to develop business strategies, improve corporate governance and financial management, and recruit key personnel. Prior to joining BVIM, Ms. Nguyen worked for the Finance Department of the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand as a Senior Finance Officer, where she directly assisted the Chief Financial Officer in financial reporting and dealt with senior management of the Institute. Before that, Ms. Nguyen was an International Banking Officer at the BIDV International Banking Department in Vietnam.  Ms. Nguyen has served on the Boards of Directors/Board of Supervisor of many Vietnamese companies, including Goldsun and Minh Phu.  Ms. Nguyen obtained her Master of Finance degree from ESCP-EAP in France and an MBA from the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand. She is also a Chartered Financial Analyst® (CFA®) and holds a Fund Management Certificate issued by the State Securities Commission of Vietnam.

Toan Nguyen is a Senior Principal with Excelsior, having recently joined Excelsior, and brings to the team 15 years of business experience in Vietnam and in the United States.  Mr. Nguyen is a key senior member of the Investment Team.  Prior to joining Excelsior, he worked as Strategy and Investment Manager for Masan Group, Vietnam’s largest consumer-focused conglomerate. Before that, he was the Deputy CFO at Seedcom Group, a leading “new retail” group in Vietnam that invests in and operates various businesses across retail, technology and consumer goods segments.  At Seedcom, Mr. Nguyen was responsible for initiating and executing strategic corporate M&A transactions in addition to being responsible for Group corporate finance, budget planning and subsidiary performance management.  Prior to Seedcom, he was an Associate Director of M&A at KPMG Vietnam, responsible for sourcing and driving the execution of key M&A advisory projects across various sectors, including retail, F&B, manufacturing and technology.  Before KPMG, Mr. Nguyen worked for Mekong Capital, where he was a key contributor to the investment into Nhat Tin Logistic, one of the leading B2B logistic providers in Vietnam. Before returning to Vietnam, he worked as an auditor for Ernst & Young in New York.  He is qualified as a Certified Public Accountant® (CPA®), certified by US-based AICPA.  Mr. Nguyen obtained his Bachelor in Accountancy degree from City University of New York, Baruch College.

Thanh Nguyen is Excelsior’s Vietnam ESG and Compliance Officer. Before joining Excelsior in 2020, she worked as CSR Consultant and Operations Manager at Srops Consulting, a local boutique advisory firm specializing in corporate social responsibility (CSR), environment social governance (ESG), and sustainability. Prior to Srops, she was a Senior Officer in charge of CSR implementation at the Vietnam manufacturing facilities of Hansoll Textile, a Korean textile producer. Ms. Nguyen started her career as Assistant to the Production Manager at OPV, a Vietnamese pharmaceutical manufacturer, after earning a Bachelor degree in Business Administration from University of Economics in Ho Chi Minh City. In addition to Vietnamese and English, Ms. Nguyen is also fluent in Korean.

Nam Tran is a Principal with Excelsior.  Prior to joining Excelsior in 2022, Mr. Tran was a Deal Leader at Mekong Capital, a private equity firm focused on consumer-oriented investments, where he led various aspects of investments, from deal origination to value creation during post-investment. Before working in private equity, Nam spent five years at Techcombank's Financial Markets Division, dealing foreign exchange, financial derivatives and advising corporate clients in treasury management. Mr. Tran majored in Economics with dual-degree from Foreign Trade University (Vietnam) and Colorado State University (USA). In addition, he obtained MSc Banking & International Finance from University of Leeds (UK), attending as Chevening Scholar.

Hue Hoang is a Senior Analyst with Excelsior. Before joining Excelsior in 2022, she worked as a Senior Associate in Corporate Finance division at Deloitte Vietnam Business & Finance Advisory where she executed both sell-side and buy-side transactions in various industries such as manufacturing, F&B, consumer retails, healthcare and fintech. Ms. Hoang holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Business Economics from University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands).

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