Background: Z/Yen's "Focus On" series highlights key business and financial centres from around the world. Here, we look at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s most populous city and largest financial centre. This city is also known as the “Pearl of the Far East” with the charming heritage, dynamic, vibrant and innovative atmosphere, and friendly people. Vietnamese government sets out the goal to be a high-income country by 2045 and reach net-zero emissions by 2050. They also strive to turn Ho Chi Minh City into the international financial center (IFC) by 2045 and create distinct institutional areas for attracting foreign investors. Vietnam’s Prime Minister is now leading the steering committee of the IFC project and this shows the government’s determination. The IFC in Vietnam will provide opportunities to UK businesses in terms of expertise sharing, trade and investment.

Speakers:

Dominic Scriven's investing career spans nearly 40 years across London, Hong Kong and Vietnam. He studied at Hanoi University for two years before founding Dragon Capital in 1994. He has received an OBE from the British Queen, and a Labour Medal from the President of Vietnam. Dominic Scriven holds a Combined Honours degree in Law and Sociology from Exeter University.

Nguyen Thuy Hanh has over 30 years of banking experience in Vietnam. Hanh leads the client coverage and product teams focused on driving the growth strategy for the bank’s clients, people, shareholders, and communities. Under her leadership, the bank provides the banking products and services to 3 client groups through various product lines including, but not limited to transaction banking, financial market, capital market, securities services, M&A advisory, rating advisory, and ESG etc.

She is also working closely with Vietnam government bodies, and market participants to implement the JETP and contribute to deliver the commitment of Vietnam in achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

Hanh has held various important positions in SCB, including Head of Financial Institutions - Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia (2010 - 2015); Deputy General Director - Head of International Corporate and Financial Institutions (2016 – 2017); Managing Director - Head of Commercial Banking (2018 – 2020); Managing Director - Head of CIB Client Coverage (2020 – 30/9/2024) and CEO & Head of Corporate and Investment Banking, Vietnam (1/10/2024 – Now).

Hanh holds a Master of Business Administration of Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management - Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Andrew Oldland is a senior lawyer specialising in international financial regulation. He is a partner in the UK law firm Michelmores and was the firm's Senior Partner between 2017 and 2021. Andrew is ranked by the Legal 500 directory as a "Leading Individual".

Andrew is a barrister, a King's Counsel and a part-time judge sitting in civil/commercial and criminal cases. He previously held a number of senior UK government roles as independent counsel including the Attorney-General's A list of counsel, standing counsel to His Majesty's Revenue & Customs and the Serious Fraud Office's list of counsel. Andrew has advised a number of governments on financial regulation, particularly in respect of common law based international financial centres.

Z/Yen's "Focus On" series highlights key business and financial centres from around the world. Here we look at Seoul, which is the largest city and capital of South Korea, as well as being home to many Fortune 500 companies, such as Samsung, LG, and Hyundai. In this webinar, Bonhi Gu will primarily deal with general information on Seoul city as a global financial hub and Invest Seoul as a foreign investment promotion agency established by Seoul Metropolitan Government.

Speaker:

Bonhi Gu is the Commissioner of Invest Seoul since 2022, with over 20 years of his previous career in banking industry.

He is truly enthusiastic about making Seoul a leading hub of global business, innovation, and talent in Asia. Most recently Mr. Gu has been leading work for Woori Bank Korea.

There, he served as an investment banking manager & derivative trader in London & Seoul. Before that, from 2011-2015,

he led the Global Business Department where he handled both HR issues and budget management of overseas networks and employees.

Also, he contributed to the company by launching banking products for global Wealth Management clients. His work has taken him to Woori Bank Europe GmbH in 2016,

where he mainly focused on corporate banking business, money intermediary, and bond trading business.

A regular speaker at the FS Club, EU Regulatory Expert David Doyle is back to give a new year update on the EU financial services regulatory agenda.

He will be covering some of the most contentious and game-changing pieces of EU legislation in the financial services space, notably:

In our Esop Sofa 2024 end of year round-up, the Esop Centre’s panel of employee share scheme experts will look at the impact of October’s Budget and PISCES (Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System).

Suzannah Crookes, Legal Director at Tapestry Compliance, will discuss the Budget’s impact on employee share ownership in general. Esop Barrister David Pett of Temple Tax Chambers, will examine the announced reforms to Employee Ownership Trusts. And Corpgro Founder Damian Carnell will guide us through the progress of PISCES following announcements in the Chancellor’s Mansion House speech.

Chairing the panel, Darren Smith of Global Shares (JP Morgan), will be asking for their predictions for the year ahead, too.

Professor Michael Mainelli returns to the FS Club webinar series after a year's sabbatical from Z/Yen to reflect on his personal experience of financial centres, particularly the City of London. As the creator of the Global Financial Centres, Smart Centres, and Global Green Finance indices, he knows what makes cities work.

Michael has a unique viewpoint on the City of London, reinforced through the privilege of serving as:

In this Community Chest, Michael hopes to provide answers to questions such as the future of financial centre concentrations, geopolitics, and regulation, as well as the underpinning technology and skills changes. His thinking has been heavily influenced from a year travelling well over 100 days to 25 countries and he looks forward to exchanging thoughts with fellow FS Club members.

How SMEs Can Enact Global Change

In this webinar, we launch the tenth edition of the Smart Centres Index (SCI 10). The SCI is designed to track the development of technology and financial centres across the world in their support for and readiness for new technology applications.

Investors, entrepreneurs, scientists, media, academics, governments, and regulators can attune their cities to attract innovation and growth in Science, Technology, Energy Systems, Machine Learning, Distributed Ledgers, or Fintech. Tuning a city for innovation is complex. Z/Yen began studying successful and unsuccessful business innovation clustering some 15 years ago, and published in 2018 the Smart Jurisdictions Index. Building on the results of that research we have created a novel factor assessment index based on three dimensions - innovation support, creative intensity, and delivery capability.

The SCI is designed to track the readiness of business centres across the world to support new technology businesses. The SCI uses assessments from private and public sector individuals, along with over 120 instrumental factors, to rate the centres. This important project that will grow substantially as more people pay attention to the ways centres can help globally innovative businesses thrive in rapidly changing times.

We all age, but some of us live longer than others and on average we are living twice as long as our ancestors did 200 years ago. So, the latest science with respect to ageing and science that I have been involved in for the last 40 years shows that 80% of our ageing biology is within our own control. Longer healthier lifespan is clearly aligned to socioeconomic status. We can not only live longer lives, but live also much happier healthier lives deep into our later years if we control modifiable factors. I will cover the most important areas that allow you to take control of your ageing process.