Elisabeth is making real impact in Vietnam
Masters in Financial Management, 2018-2019
At Vlerick, we’re all about empowering people to create impact. And alumna Elisabeth Leysen is creating impact in spades.
She is a co-founder of the Aquitara Impact Fund, whose mission is to clean land in Vietnam that was contaminated by Agent Orange, and develop eco-industrial parks. The fund is currently in the final stages of its first closing – and looks set to make a real difference in the near future.
Elisabeth’s professional and personal journey spans Belgium and Vietnam. And her Masters in Financial Management at Vlerick played an important role in where she is now.
Looking for hands-on experience
Born in Vietnam, Elisabeth was adopted and raised in Belgium. At 18, she took a gap year and travelled to Vietnam to explore her roots and connect with her birth family. “After travelling, I came back to Belgium to study economics,” she says. “But I had fallen in love with Vietnam, it’s such a vibrant environment. I knew I wanted to stay connected to it, so I started to learn the language."
“My economics degree was quite general, and when I graduated, I didn’t know where to take my career. I knew I wanted more objective learnings and more practical experience, so I decided to do a Masters in Financial Management."
“I chose Vlerick partly for the network. They really connect people and make it easy to reach out to businesses. Vlerick has a strong reputation and gives you common ground with lots of people in Belgium, and internationally. I was also drawn by the live business cases, I knew the learning approach would help me figure out my future.”
Becoming a finance specialist
Elisabeth’s Vlerick highlights include the Private Equity course with Professor Sophie Manigart and the study tours to Amsterdam and London, visiting investment banks and meeting alumni.
After graduating, Elisabeth secured a role at Deloitte. It was a rotation programme where she worked on all stages of the M&A process – using the skills and tools she’d learned at Vlerick. She then decided it was time to broaden her perspective, so she moved to an investment fund in Brussels that backed start-ups and scale-ups.
“I led projects straight away,” she says. “I had to source clients and decide if a business was worth investing in. I drew on everything I’d learned at Vlerick and at Deloitte. An investment decision is not just about money. It’s about people. It’s about marketing. It’s about story.”
From Belgium to Vietnam
Deep down, Elisabeth knew she wanted to return to Vietnam. But she also wanted to progress her career.
“My family in Belgium is very entrepreneurial,” she says. “When our company, Ahlers Logistics, asked me to set up and run an office in Vietnam, I took the leap, as Vlerick say. I made the move, and surrounded myself with a great team.” After two years, an opportunity emerged that Elisabeth felt she couldn’t pass up.
Restoring land and fuelling growth
“Together with my former colleague Franc Bogovic, we started exploring how we could address the lasting impact of Agent Orange in Vietnam," she says. "We wanted to build a project that could clean up the land, and we knew it would take people who understood both Belgium and Vietnam.”
During the Vietnam War, 2.6m hectares of land were contaminated with a toxic herbicide called Agent Orange – and up to 1m hectares are still impacted today.
"It's a huge issue," says Elisabeth. "But it has been largely forgotten. What has been missing is not the will to solve it, but the combination of capital and technology to do so at scale.“I took the leap and joined Franc and the other co-founders. Together we constructed the fund, working with the Vietnam government to understand the challenges they wanted to solve.”
Driving change, generating returns
It was important that the fund was not just philanthropic, but also sustainable from an investor’s perspective.
“We developed a three-pillar approach,” says Elisabeth. “The first is funding remediation of Agent Orange-contaminated land. Our partners, Haemers Technology, developed the specialist technology to do this. They currently have the only technology in the world that’s proven to be zero waste – and cleans the land with more than 99% efficacy."
“The second pillar is infrastructure development. Vietnam is an ambitious country – it’s growing fast and its growth has largely been created by manufacturing. So when we fund remediation, the government gives us the land rights to other areas of the country, where we develop solar-powered, eco-industrial parks that are ready for investment."
“The final pillar focuses on directly supporting the victims of Agent Orange. We donate micro-convenience stores to families, then coach them for six months on how to run a business. They keep the profits. We’re working closely with our partners, the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA), on this.”
Aquitara also has a 100% non-profit fund. The Aquitara Philanthropic Fund is managed by the King Baudouin Foundation, and aims to expand the micro-convenience store programme to other provinces.
A lasting impact in Vietnam
Elisabeth understands why some are sceptical about impact investing. Rather than argue, she wants to prove it can work, with a fund where returns depend on creating real impact.
“We’ve tried to build a model where we can’t get returns without making impact – and we can’t make impact without generating returns,” she says. “We want to prove to the Vietnam government that we are here for the long haul. Part of this is developing strong links between Belgium and Vietnam."
“We’ve worked hard to make it a bilateral collaboration. Belgium was the first country to pass a resolution in parliament to help remediate the impact of Agent Orange.The Belgian ambassador is represented at our key meetings, and we have central government support."
“This is a highly sensitive subject in Vietn,am we had to prove that we want to create long-term impact, not just make money and leave. There is an appetite here for collaboration, and there has been a lot of partnership building. To do business in Vietnam, you need to work together with the Vietnamese people.”
Working in partnership
“I learned a lot about people at Vlerick,” Elisabeth says. “Theory is important, of course, but relationships are more important. Everyone could use help, and everyone can offer help. One thing I learned on my Masters was that everyone can add value. Today, I work across cultures and with different languages. This comes with challenges and you can become impatient. But you have to remember that you all have a common goal. There were so many nationalities at Vlerick, I valued the diversity. You can’t expect everyone to work in the same way or think in the same way. It’s not always easy, but it’s super important.”
Building a legacy
Elisabeth plans to stay in Vietnam for the long term. “It’s so vibrant and dynamic,” she says. “The fund is the platform we’re building right now, but there will be subsequent funds too. I’m doing work that matters and work that I love. I’m in it for the long term, and I could do this for the rest of my life. Lots of people don’t know Vietnam. But it has so much potential for growth – I’d tell other professionals to keep an eye on Vietnam!”
And for future Masters students, Elisabeth has some good advice.