Chris Freund

From the end of the U.S. war in Vietnam until February 1994, the U.S. has imposed a trade and investment embargo on Vietnam. When the trade embargo was lifted on the 3rd of February 1994, it opened the floodgates to foreign investment, trade, and career opportunities for foreigners in Vietnam. Chris was excited about the opportunity to live and work in Vietnam, so in mid-1994 he took a leave from his university to engage in an internship project in Ho Chi Minh City, researching investment opportunities in Vietnam. Templeton had recently launched a NYSE-listed Vietnam fund, the Templeton Vietnam Opportunities Fund. Upon graduating in early 1995, Chris joined Templeton and became their first employee in Vietnam, opening Templeton’s Vietnam office and scouring the market for investment opportunities.

In 1998, after having made 3 investments in joint ventures with state-owned enterprises, and in the midst of the Asian Financial Crisis, Templeton closed its Vietnam office, and moved the Vietnam team to Singapore. In Singapore, Chris became a Portfolio Manager, analyzing and recommending investments in technology companies in Taiwan and Israel, while continuing to oversee some investments that Templeton had made in Vietnam. Having the opportunities to meet the founders and CEOs of many successful companies in Taiwan and Israel, Chris was inspired by the possibility of launching a business. Chris really wanted to be back in Vietnam. And he wanted to pioneer a model of investing that was much more hands-on and value-added than what he had seen investors doing until then.

At the age of 29, Chris moved back to Ho Chi Minh City in 2001 and founded Mekong Capital as the first hands-on Private Equity firm in Vietnam. Mekong Capital would focus on investments in private sector companies, rather than former state-owned enterprises, and aimed to add value to those companies to help them grow. The launch of Mekong Capital was achieved with the strong support of a World Bank program called the Mekong Private Sector Development Facility (MPDF) and the Asian Development Bank, both of whom were being champions for this fund due to the positive impact it would have on the development of Vietnam’s private sector. For more on the early history of Mekong Capital, please see: The Origin of Mekong Capital.

Also in 2001, together with his high-school friend Jonah Levey, Chris co-founded VietnamWorks (later becoming Navigos Group), which would ultimately become Vietnam’s largest recruitment services firm. Chris’ involvement in Navigos as a non-executive Board member helped position Mekong Capital near the center of Vietnam’s recruiting world. Eventually, Navigos was sold in a trade sale to a Japanese strategic investor in 2013.

From 2001 until 2006, Chris worked 6 ½ days a way, often 14 hour days, but he struggled as the CEO of Mekong Capital. He was ready to give up on himself as the CEO (and only Partner) of Mekong Capital when in mid-2007 he enrolled himself in a 3-day transformation program in Singapore called the Landmark Forum. This proved to be a pivotal event for Chris, and for Mekong Capital, as it marked the start of their journey of transformation.

Chris has been closely involved in all stages of sourcing, due diligence & implementation, post-investment value creation, and exiting for a wide range of investments in Mekong Capital’s funds since 2001, both poor investments and successful investments. Since around 2020, Chris has been the primary person accountable for the success of post-investment value creation, spending the majority of his time on post-investment value creation initiatives.

Over the last 25 years, Chris has been Mekong Capital’s Deal Leader or Deal Partner for a wide variety of investee companies, including MobileWorld, an investment which resulted in a 57x return for Mekong Enterprise Fund II, marking it one of the most pre-eminent investments in Asian Private Equity. MobileWorld was also one of the core models of success that was an inspiration for the Vision Driven Investing framework.

Since then, Chris has played a central role in the development of the Vision Driven Investing framework. He focuses on the successful implementation of Vision Driven Investing across Mekong’s portfolio of investee companies and the continuous improvement of the framework. Currently Chris is the senior member of the deal team, called Deal Partner, for a majority of Mekong’s current investments. Chris is also a member of the Board of Directors of several of those investee companies. Chris is also a member of Mekong’s Investment Recommendation Committee and Management Committee.

Having first moved to Vietnam in 1994, Chris has spent 28 years in Vietnam. He considers Vietnam to be his home. Chris loves living in Vietnam and is proud to be part of the bright future that the people of Vietnam are building.