Andie Bui

“Vietnamese lives are cheap.”

That was the cold assessment of a U.S. General during the Vietnam War. It’s 2025, and in the global economy, Vietnam still sits at the bottom rung of the value chain, known more for cheap labour than value creation.

I was born into a family business producing steel and cement, where I spent summers watching young workers labour under harsh conditions. That early exposure to industrial realities fuelled my mission: to build globally respected services firms in Vietnam, where talent doesn’t get trapped by geography or GDP.

Today, I’m an Audit Senior at BDO London, working on a £3.2 billion audit portfolio that includes FTSE-listed and global clients like Deloitte Global, EY, Clyde & Co, and Renewi plc. I took this route not to stay in audit, but to learn from the best—how capital flows, how risk is managed, and how global firms run at scale.

In parallel, I co-founded Aurora Software, an outsourcing firm that connects Vietnamese engineers with UK clients. I also operate a successful Airbnb business, generating £150K in annual revenue. These aren’t side gigs, they’re my testing grounds for what it takes to build and scale resilient businesses.

These ventures have been my education. The next step is formalising that foundation with the LBS MiF.