Kien Pham’s career spans business, government, and nonprofit sectors. But he’s particularly passionate about providing educational opportunities to students in his native country. Born in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Kien and his family escaped Vietnam by boat in 1977, spending more than 100 days on the South China Sea. He arrived in the U.S. at the age of 19 and learned English while working in a factory. Diagnosed with progressive vision loss, he received a scholarship for the blind from the University of Colorado, then earned concurrent graduate degrees from Stanford and the GSB. His journey from factory worker to Stanford graduate led to a “soul-searching process” that shaped his life’s direction and instilled in him a strong conviction about the power of education.
Right after graduation from GSB, Kien was selected as a White House Fellow and was introduced by President Reagan to the nation in a televised speech. From 2003 to 2006, Kien was the founding Executive Director of the Vietnam Education Foundation, an independent federal agency that sent top Vietnamese scholars to leading graduate schools in the U.S., building it into an internationally renowned success that inspired the Fulbright program to adopt its operating model. Once he became successful in the U.S., Kien expanded his efforts, notes Walt Spevak, ’76, MBA ’85: “Kien has transformed the lives of thousands of people in Vietnam by sending numerous individuals to college and graduate schools.” Walt also recalled how the GSB alumni trips Kien organized to Vietnam “helped change… our classmates.”
While many of his peers have retired, Kien has moved on to his next project: providing the online learning platform, Khan Academy Vietnam, free of charge through the nonprofit Vietnam Foundation, to more than two million K–12 students across Vietnam. And Kien continues to make connections. “In the U.S., I was lucky to meet kind-hearted people who encouraged and guided me,” he noted in an interview on the Vietnam Foundation website. “I have since endeavored to bridge the gap between the educational systems in Vietnam and the U.S.” Despite his accomplishments, Kien describes himself modestly. “I am just a bridge builder,” he says. “Each bridge has its own name, but the builder normally remains anonymous.”
