Dr. Phạm Hà
Founder and CEO of LuxGroup®
Chairman of Lux Cruises Group®
Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Green Tourism Association
I was born in Hải Dương—a rural homeland now entering a new chapter as part of Hải Phòng—among rice fields, village roads, and a childhood that could hardly imagine how vast the world truly was.
In those days, leaving home to study in Hanoi was not simply a change of address. It meant crossing an invisible frontier: from countryside to capital, from familiarity to uncertainty, from the shelter of family to a life in which every decision had to be made for oneself.
I arrived in Hanoi with little more than a few sets of clothes, my family’s expectations, and an ambition I could not yet put into words. I did not know who I would become. I knew only one thing: if I had left home, I could not return as the same person who had departed.
Hanoi and My First Lesson About Distance
For my generation, Hanoi belonged to another world.
The distance between the countryside and the city was not measured merely in kilometres. It could be heard in our accents, seen in our clothes, and felt in our confidence, social connections, knowledge, and manners. Things that seemed perfectly ordinary to someone born in the capital could be entirely new experiences for a young man from the provinces.
City people knew the way. I had to ask.
Others inherited relationships. I had to build my own.
Others spoke foreign languages with confidence. I had to learn every word, practise every sound, and correct every mistake.
Others could fail and retreat to the safety of home. I understood that I had very little room to retreat.
Yet that sense of disadvantage became a demanding teacher. It taught me that one’s starting point is not a life sentence. A distance is not something about which to feel inferior; it is simply a measure of how far one must travel.
I could not choose where I was born. But I could choose the person I would become.
Foreign Languages Opened the First Door
I studied French and English at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
This was more than a professional choice. To me, a foreign language was a passport of the mind.
Every language opened a different window onto the world. French introduced me to cultural depth, history, art, and refinement. English opened a broader gateway to knowledge, business, and the global community.
The hesitant provincial student gradually became a French lecturer, interpreter, and tour guide. I travelled more, met people from different countries, and listened to stories shaped by cultures far beyond my own.
Those journeys taught me something fundamental: foreign languages enable us to speak to the world, but culture is what makes the world remember us.
I could describe a landscape in French or English, but vocabulary alone could never move a traveller. What touched people was the soul of the destination, the story of its people, and the pride with which we shared our homeland.
It was during those early years as a tour guide that I began to see another path. Tourism was not merely about transporting visitors from one place to another. It was the art of telling the story of a nation.
Tourism could create livelihoods, preserve heritage, connect cultures, and deliver happiness.
The first seed of LuxGroup® was planted during those years.
When Knowledge Had to Become Business Capability
Foreign languages opened the door, but passion and communication skills alone could not build an enduring company.
I continued my studies in Business Administration at the National Economics University. If languages gave me wings, business education gave me a map.
I learned how to understand markets, manage finance, build organisations, and transform an idea into a viable enterprise. I came to understand that an entrepreneur cannot merely dream. A dream must become a strategy; strategy must become a plan; a plan requires people to execute it; and every effort must ultimately create genuine value for the customer.
In 2005, I founded Luxury Travel.
I inherited no fortune and took over no established organisation. There was no road prepared for me. The business began with what I possessed: foreign-language skills, experience in tourism, an understanding of travellers, and a conviction that Vietnam deserved a luxury travel brand created by Vietnamese people.
We did not sell extravagance.
We created culturally rich and deeply personal experiences, delivered from the heart.
From one small enterprise, that journey gradually evolved into LuxGroup®—a House of Small Giants. We have never pursued the ambition of becoming the largest group. We seek to become the best in every field we choose to enter.
I have always believed:
Luxury is Culture®.
True luxury is not defined by hardware alone. Its essence is “heartware”: presence, understanding, refinement, and sincere care for people.
From Hải Dương to Harvard
Many years after leaving my village, I continued my learning journey at Harvard University and Harvard Business School.
Standing before Harvard’s iconic buildings, I saw more than a renowned university. I saw the entire distance I had travelled.
From a village in Hải Dương.
To Hanoi to study foreign languages.
From the classroom to the road as a tour guide.
From tour guide to entrepreneur.
From a small company to an ecosystem encompassing travel, cruises, hospitality, gastronomy, art, and culturally rooted luxury experiences.
Harvard was not a finishing line. It reminded me that the farther we travel, the more deeply we must learn; the greater our responsibility, the more humble we must become.
There, I broadened my understanding of leadership, strategy, finance, negotiation, sustainability, and the management of happiness. Yet the most important lesson did not belong to any single course.
It came in the form of a question:
What will I do with this knowledge?
If education merely adds another line to a résumé, its purpose is too small.
If success exists only to prove that we are superior to others, its meaning is too narrow.
If a company generates profit without making employees happier, serving customers better, strengthening communities, or preserving heritage, it has not fulfilled its mission.
I learn so that I can return and serve more effectively.
I go abroad so that I can understand Vietnam more profoundly.
I embrace global knowledge so that I can tell Vietnam’s story on a greater stage.
We Were Not Born at the Finish Line
People from the provinces often carry a private fear: the fear of spending years away from home without accomplishing anything meaningful.
For a long time, that fear made us work harder, study longer, and rarely allow ourselves to give up. With age, however, I came to understand that the most sustainable motivation is not the fear of being underestimated. It is the desire to create value.
I no longer learn merely to keep pace with others.
I learn so that who I am today can surpass who I was yesterday.
I did not build a company simply to prove that someone from the countryside could succeed.
I built it to demonstrate that Vietnamese people can create world-class luxury brands rooted in Vietnamese identity—brands capable of serving international travellers without surrendering the soul of the nation.
We were not born at the finish line. For many years, I did not even know where the finish line was.
Still, I refused to remain motionless.
When a door did not open, I continued knocking.
When no road existed, I created one.
When failure made me doubt myself, I learned, adjusted, and moved forward.
Life does not necessarily reward those who begin closest to the destination. It often rewards those who keep walking when the destination is not yet visible.
Going Far Does Not Mean Abandoning Home
Today, Hải Dương and Hải Phòng are entering a new chapter of development. Wider roads, new bridges, industrial zones, ports, and modern urban centres are transforming the region.
The old distance between countryside and city is disappearing.
A young person in a village can now learn from international professors online, work for a global enterprise, or build a company without leaving their hometown.
Yet I hope that as living conditions improve, the resilient spirit of previous generations will not disappear.
Do not feel inferior because you were born in a small place.
But do not become complacent simply because your hometown is growing larger.
A territory can be enlarged by administrative boundaries. A human being grows only by expanding the mind, deepening compassion, and strengthening the capacity to serve.
We do not travel far to deny our origins. We travel so that one day we can return with greater knowledge, richer experience, and a clearer understanding of what we can contribute to our homeland.
I left Hải Dương to study in Hanoi.
From Hanoi, I went out into the world.
And from the world, I returned to Vietnam.
It was not a straight line. It was an ever-widening circle whose centre has always remained my homeland.
You May Be Born in a Small Place, but You Need Not Live a Small Life
If I could offer one message to young people today, it would be this:
You may not yet have money, but you can accumulate knowledge.
You may not have influential relationships, but you can build competence and credibility.
You may not speak a foreign language, but you can begin with one new word each day.
You may fail, but do not allow one failure to define your entire life.
You may be born in a small village, but your ambitions do not have to remain within its boundaries.
From rural Hải Dương to Hanoi; from foreign-language education to Business Administration at the National Economics University; from my first journeys as a tour guide to Harvard University and Harvard Business School—I have come to believe that what determines a person’s life is not where they begin, but what they do with that beginning.
My greatest pride is not the number of countries I have visited, the institutions at which I have studied, or the brands I have built.
My greatest pride is that, after all these years, I can still look back at the provincial boy I once was and say:
“Thank you for daring to leave home. Thank you for refusing to surrender to insecurity. Thank you for travelling far enough to understand that success does not mean abandoning the place where you were born. It means returning with the strength to make your homeland prouder.”
I was born in a small place.
But I have never allowed my dreams to become small.
