From Business Performance to Brand Power: Vinamilk Maintains Its Leading Position

50 Years of Raising the Bar: How Vinamilk Built Vietnam’s $2.6 Billion Dairy Brand

In the Most Powerful Women Asia 2026 ranking, Fortune placed Mai Kiều Liên at No. 71, up two places from 2025 and four places from her first appearance in 2024. Over three consecutive years on the list, her ranking has risen steadily from 75 to 73 and then to 71. Fortune particularly highlighted her journey from a dairy engineer to one of Vietnam’s longest-serving CEOs, as well as her role in guiding Vinamilk through its equitization, stock-market listing and international expansion.

Founded in the United States in 1930, Fortune is one of the world’s most influential business magazines and is known for rankings such as the Fortune 500, Global 500 and Most Powerful Women. The 2026 Most Powerful Women Asia list recognizes 100 female leaders across 14 markets in the Asia-Pacific region, bringing together CEOs, chairwomen and senior executives from major corporations, as well as founders of high-growth companies. The ranking is assessed by Fortune’s editorial team based on data and criteria including business scale and performance, innovation capabilities, leadership influence, career trajectory and broader positive impact on society. The final ranking reflects both current influence and the potential to create continued impact in the future.

Ms. Mai Kieu Lien has been named by Fortune among the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Asia for the third consecutive time. Photo: Vi Nam

Being named by Fortune for three consecutive years adds to the long list of domestic and international recognition Mai Kiều Liên has received over several decades, reinforcing her position as one of Vietnam’s most prominent business leaders.

The imprint of the “dairy industry general”

In 1976, after graduating in dairy processing in the Soviet Union, Mai Kiều Liên returned to Vietnam and began working at Truong Tho Dairy Factory. At the time, Vietnam’s domestic dairy industry was effectively starting over, facing shortages of raw materials, equipment, spare parts and technical personnel. Beginning as an engineer, she gradually took on management responsibilities and became CEO of Vinamilk in 1992. Her more than three decades at the company’s helm coincided with some of the most significant transformations in Vietnam’s economy—from a centrally planned system to a market economy, from economic opening and integration to equitization, stock-market listing and direct competition with international corporations.

From the early years, when the company had to find ways to keep production running despite shortages of equipment and spare parts, to the later period when Vinamilk invested in internationally standardized factories and farms, Mai Kiều Liên has consistently upheld one principle: to build for the long term, a company must have the ability to master what it depends on.

In the early years, mastering its operations meant being able to repair and restore equipment in order to keep production running. As the market opened, that requirement evolved into mastering technology, raw-material supplies, production systems and management. Vinamilk gradually invested in modern production lines, developed dairy-cattle farming areas and built sufficient internal capabilities to compete as international dairy groups established an increasingly strong presence in Vietnam.

Alongside self-reliance came extremely high standards for quality. Mai Kiều Liên has expressed her philosophy in one concise statement: “Once food has entered the human body, there is no chance to correct a mistake.” For a food company, quality therefore goes beyond meeting standards. It means controlling everything from raw materials, technology and production to the finished product, because behind every product are the health and trust of consumers. This also helps explain why Vinamilk has continued investing in its factories, farms, quality-management systems and product research even after establishing itself as the market leader.

From the early days at the factory, Ms. Mai Kieu Lien and generations of Vinamilk officials and engineers gradually mastered production processes despite facing numerous challenges. Photo: Vi Nam

Yet mastering its own capabilities does not mean preserving everything that once brought success. As the market and consumers change, Vinamilk has had to change as well. From expanding its raw-material base and investing in technology to developing new product categories and undertaking a major brand repositioning in 2023, the company has repeatedly adjusted its strategy to meet new market demands. This is another notable feature of Mai Kiều Liên’s more than three-decade leadership journey: persistence has never become an obstacle to innovation. The core principles of quality, efficiency and self-reliance have remained intact, while the way they are put into practice has continually evolved. Once one standard has been achieved, a higher one is set.

Fifty years after entering Truong Tho Dairy Factory as an engineer, Mai Kiều Liên remains directly involved in the company’s transformation. The distance between those two moments also reflects Vinamilk’s own journey—from factories struggling to maintain production amid shortages to a Vietnamese company capable of competing in international markets.

The year 2026 marks Vinamilk’s 50th anniversary. From its starting point in 1976, Vinamilk products are now available in 67 countries and territories, with cumulative export revenue exceeding US$3.9 billion. The company currently ranks 36th globally by dairy-industry revenue and has a brand valuation of US$2.6 billion. These figures demonstrate the scale Vinamilk has achieved over half a century, but they do not fully capture what has shaped that journey.

In many of her remarks about Vinamilk, Mai Kiều Liên rarely puts herself at the center of the story. Instead, she speaks about the team, the generations that have helped build the company and the responsibility of preparing the next generation of leaders. One leader can create turning points, but for a company to grow across generations, the leader’s capabilities and principles must gradually become the capabilities of the organization as a whole.

This perspective was also reflected in the way she looked back on Vinamilk’s journey at the company’s 50th-anniversary celebration in July 2026: “Vinamilk was born from Vietnam and nurtured by the Vietnamese people.” After half a century, the company’s story is therefore told not only through its scale and growth figures, but also through the generations of people who have worked together to build a Vietnamese company capable of competing with the world.

After 50 years with Vinamilk and more than three decades at the company’s helm, Mai Kiều Liên continues to lead the business directly, speaking more about what remains to be done than about achievements already accomplished. The focus remains on self-reliance, quality, innovation and the need to continuously raise standards.

Ms. Mai Kieu Lien and Vinamilk’s younger generation carry forward the company’s development journey into a new phase. Photo: Vi Nam

From a young female engineer returning to Vietnam in 1976 to a leader named by Fortune among Asia’s 100 Most Powerful Women for three consecutive years, hers has been a long journey. For much of that journey, her career has run parallel with Vinamilk’s 50 years of development—from the early days of building Vietnam’s dairy industry amid severe shortages to the emergence of a Vietnamese brand capable of competing in international markets.

Fifty years is long enough for a leader’s choices to become the way an organization operates: mastering its own capabilities so it does not become dependent, maintaining quality standards to protect consumer trust, and continuously changing in order to move forward. This may be the clearest imprint Mai Kiều Liên has left after half a century with Vinamilk: building a Vietnamese company with the internal strength to go far and the foundations for future generations to continue the journey.