By Dr. Pham Ha
Founder & CEO, LuxGroup®
Luxury is Culture® | Delivering Happiness®
When I enrolled in Harvard’s Leadership for Purposeful Change: Creating Public Value program, I expected to learn a few new management tools. Instead, I embarked on a journey of reflection—one that challenged me to rethink not only leadership, but also the deeper purpose of business, entrepreneurship, and the legacy we leave behind.
For more than two decades, I have devoted my life to tourism. I began as a tour guide, became an entrepreneur, and eventually built a group of travel, cruise, hospitality, and cultural brands. Throughout that journey, I always believed that travel could make the world a better place. Harvard gave that belief a name: Public Value.
According to Professor Mark Moore of Harvard Kennedy School, leadership is not merely about managing resources or generating profit. Leadership is the act of improving the conditions under which people and communities live. It is about creating opportunities, protecting dignity, advancing justice, preserving culture, and leaving society better than we found it.
As I reflected on the evolution of LuxGroup®, I realized that what motivated me was never simply the ambition to build a successful tourism company. My deeper aspiration was to tell Vietnam’s story to the world, preserve cultural heritage, and create sustainable livelihoods for local communities through tourism.
One of the most powerful questions raised during the course was:
“If your organization disappeared tomorrow, what would society lose?”
That question stayed with me.
If LuxGroup® were merely selling tours or operating cruise ships, perhaps the loss would be limited. But if LuxGroup® contributes to preserving heritage, elevating Vietnamese culture, creating quality jobs, and helping visitors understand Vietnam more deeply, then its disappearance would leave a meaningful gap. That, Harvard taught me, is the essence of public value.
The Strategic Triangle: Value, Legitimacy, and Capacity
One of the most influential concepts introduced in the course was the Strategic Triangle.
Professor Moore argues that every successful initiative must align three elements:
- Public Value
- Legitimacy and Support
- Operational Capacity
A good idea alone is not enough.
Leaders must answer three critical questions:
- Does this create value?
- Will people support it?
- Can it actually be done?
Looking back, I see this framework reflected in many of LuxGroup’s most important initiatives.
Heritage Cruises® did not succeed simply because we built an elegant ship. It succeeded because local communities, employees, partners, government authorities, and travelers all shared a belief that culture represents the future of luxury tourism.
Heritage Cruises: Reviving a National Legacy
Perhaps no project illustrates this better than Heritage Cruises®.
The inspiration came from Bach Thai Buoi, the legendary Vietnamese entrepreneur known as the “King of Tonkin Shipping.” More than a century ago, he demonstrated that Vietnamese enterprise could compete successfully in a world dominated by foreign powers.
What made the project especially meaningful was the support of Ms. Bach Que Huong, the great-granddaughter of Bach Thai Buoi, who graciously accepted the role of godmother of Heritage Binh Chuan®.
The timing was symbolic.
Heritage Binh Chuan® was launched exactly one hundred years after the historic Binh Chuan vessel entered service in 1919.
A century later, the entrepreneurial spirit, patriotism, and vision embodied by Bach Thai Buoi were reborn through a floating cultural experience that celebrates Vietnam’s heritage while introducing it to global travelers.
In many ways, Heritage Cruises® is more than a tourism product. It is a living museum, a platform for storytelling, and an example of how tourism can preserve memory while creating contemporary value.
Amiral Cruises: A Voyage Through Time
If Heritage Cruises® tells the story of Vietnamese entrepreneurship, Amiral Cruises for Presidents® tells the story of Vietnam’s journey as a nation.
On June 5, 1911, a young kitchen assistant named Nguyen Tat Thanh boarded the French vessel Amiral Latouche-Tréville at Nha Rong Wharf in Saigon. That journey marked the beginning of a thirty-year quest that would ultimately change the destiny of Vietnam.
Exactly 115 years later, inspired by that historic voyage, we launched the vision for Amiral Cruises for Presidents®.
For me, Amiral Cruises® is not simply a river cruise.
It is a storytelling platform.
Each voyage along the Saigon River seeks to connect visitors with the history of the city, the river, and the nation itself. It transforms tourism into an educational and cultural experience, allowing travelers to engage with Vietnam’s past while imagining its future.
The river remembers.
And through tourism, we can help others remember as well.
Leadership Is the Power to Do, Not the Power Over
Another profound lesson from Harvard was the distinction between power over and power to do.
Many people assume leadership is primarily about authority. They believe success comes from controlling resources, commanding people, or occupying influential positions.
Harvard challenged that assumption.
True leadership is the ability to mobilize people around a shared purpose.
Over the years, I have learned that preserving heritage, building destinations, and creating meaningful tourism experiences cannot be accomplished by any one organization acting alone.
No company can preserve culture by itself.
No government can create authentic experiences alone.
No community can attract global visitors on its own.
Public value emerges only when different actors align their interests and work together.
Leadership, therefore, becomes less about control and more about coalition building.
Measuring What Truly Matters
The course also changed how I think about success.
In business, we are accustomed to measuring performance through revenue, profit, occupancy rates, and market share.
Those metrics are important.
But they are incomplete.
How do we measure trust?
How do we measure pride?
How do we measure cultural preservation?
How do we measure happiness?
Harvard’s concept of Public Value Accounting encourages leaders to expand their definition of performance.
At LuxGroup®, we increasingly seek to measure not only financial outcomes but also cultural, social, environmental, and community impact.
This aligns naturally with our guiding philosophy:
Luxury is Culture®
and
Delivering Happiness®
We believe profit is the result of creating value—not the purpose of creating value.
Building a Group of Small Giants
The course also reinforced a belief that has shaped LuxGroup® from the beginning.
We do not aspire to become the largest tourism company.
We aspire to become one of the most meaningful.
This is why I often describe LuxGroup® as a Group of Small Giants.
A Small Giant is not defined by size.
It is defined by purpose.
It chooses significance over scale, quality over quantity, and long-term impact over short-term gain.
The future will not belong to the largest organizations.
It will belong to those that learn fastest, adapt best, and serve with the greatest sense of purpose.
A Legacy of Public Value
Perhaps the most important lesson Harvard taught me is that careers should not be measured by positions held but by value created.
People often define success through titles:
Manager.
Director.
CEO.
Chairman.
But public value creators define success through projects completed, communities strengthened, opportunities created, and lives improved.
Viewed through that lens, LuxGroup® is not simply a business.
It is a continuing series of public value projects.
From Luxury Travel® to Heritage Cruises®, from Emperor Cruises® to Amiral Cruises for Presidents®, each initiative seeks to contribute something larger than itself.
Each seeks to preserve a story, strengthen a community, and create meaningful experiences that endure long after the journey ends.
Leadership, I have come to believe, is not about standing in front of people and telling them where to go.
It is about helping people see a better future, believe in that future, and work together to make it real.
That is the journey LuxGroup® will continue to pursue.
Because in the end, the greatest legacy of a leader is not what he owns.
It is the value he leaves behind for others.
Dr. Pham Ha
Founder & CEO, LuxGroup®
Luxury is Culture® | Delivering Happiness®
