Australian alumni entrepreneur: Women empowerment is key to workplace sustainability

Tech entrepreneur Tran Hanh Trang is committed to creating an inclusive working environment for young talent in Vietnam, heeding advice and experience she gained from years of studying and working in Australia.

When Tran Hanh Trang, Monash University alumni from Da Nang, Vietnam, launched her tech company 10 years ago, she wanted to elevate young developers in her home country by sharing the hands-on skills and experience she gained from Australia and her career as a coder.

Ten years on, her company has grown from three staff to over 270, with clients all over the world. And their mission has expanded as well, going beyond technology solutions to include empowering women and working in the community.

Trang studied Banking and Finance and Computer Science at Monash University, but her passion for technology led her to several website development projects. She worked as an analyst and programmer at RMIT University in Australia for six years until reaching a turning point: she decided to leave Melbourne to return home to Da Nang.

Trang set herself a mission to create a more valuable, fulfilling career path, and help young talent in Vietnam to access training and development opportunities. Starting small, she founded ENOUVO, a tech product company based in Da Nang, and set out to create an inclusive work environment, similar to her experiences in Australia.

“Around 70% of our staff are new graduates and we are their launching pad. We ensure that they know they will be trained and grow here. There was a lot of difficulties at first but having a team of 270 now is an achievement for us. We may not be very big, but we are making contributions to our home city Da Nang,” Trang said.

Trang is committed to ensuring a diverse workplace – over 40% of her team are women. She believes diversity is the key to a company’s sustainable growth, especially gender diversity in a traditionally male-dominated field like web programming. Despite the persistent gender wage and employment gap in her industry, she strives for equality early in her company’s recruitment process.

“I want to help women feel more confident. In my company I encourage men to support women more and learn about their difficulties at work. I need to understand my women colleagues better before I can tell others to do so. When our women grow, the company also grows towards sustainability.”

Much of Trang’s experience of diversity began in Melbourne, a multi-racial and multi-cultural city where she learned from friends from around the world. “Studying in Australia gave me a fresh perspective on how the world operates and what opportunities are available,” Trang said. But she did not want to keep her experiences to herself, especially after seeing the benefits for companies, employees and the community. “This encouraged me to change myself and give back. I must go home and do something to help Vietnam reach world standards.”

In Vietnam, Trang has collaborated with other Australian alumni to strengthen her projects and share her entrepreneurial vision with a wider community. This also helped Trang bring even more talent on board for ENOUVO.

Trang encourages young alumni who are launching their startup journeys: “Finding the right people who pursue the same values as yours is the most important factor. Your team members need to complement each other in terms of skills. You must be resilient to overcome challenges, and even if you don’t, you will learn from them.”