While Hoang Minh Nhat, founder of the Minh Nhat bread chain, was recognised in the category of the “most innovative business model”, General Director of the Chau Thong Co. Ltd Nguyen Thi My Lien was honoured with the special prize.
The APEC BEST Award went to Rika Yajima, founder and CEO of the Japanese company Aeru.
The “highest growth potential” award was granted to Maria Gracia Dalgalarrando Haritcalde, founder and CEO of MOOWUP of Chile.
The winner of the “international attractiveness” category was Russian entrepreneur Natalia Larchenko, founder and CEO of Matryoshka Rus Ltd.
Meanwhile, the “best social impact” and “best green project” awards were presented to Chang Wei-Shuan, founder and CEO of Chinese Taipei’s Woman Media Group, and Bernadette de Los Santos from the Philippines, respectively.
They were among 12 women from 12 APEC member economies who took part in the 2017 APEC BEST Award – APEC’s first contest for women entrepreneurs.
To win the prizes, they presented their firms’ vision, customers, finance and personnel issues and later answered questions raised by the jury.
The principal which drives the APEC BEST Award, which was initiated by Russia, is the spreading of best practices by women-owned companies among the APEC economies and encouraging business women to apply promising business models based on domestic success stories.
The first APEC BEST Award was presented in Lima in 2016 when Peru was the host of APEC.
This year’s event was co-sponsored by Vietnam, Japan, Chile, Chinese Taipei and China. It formed part of the ongoing 2017 APEC Women and the Economy Forum in Hue city, the central province of Thua Thien-Hue.
