Antonio Purón was a senior partner of McKinsey & Company in the Mexico Office until January 2008.  His 27 year practice concentrated on serving clients in the energy, chemicals and petrochemicals sectors in Mexico, the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Venezuela.  In addition, he led work for clients in the financial institutions, consumer goods, retail, water, construction, transportation, manufacturing and telecommunications industries. 

In Mexico he served government and contributed to the modernization and deregulation of the national electric system and the E & P division of the national oil company, and has collaborated in the evolution of the country's basic infrastructure, such as gas distribution, municipal water utilities, ports, toll roads, and solid waste disposal.  His practice comprises both working for authorities and state-owned companies as well as with private investors interested in participating in sectors recently deregulated.

In the industrial and financial sectors he led projects for major national groups and global corporations, focused on strategic planning and growth, operations improvement, organization and process redesign, optimization and diversification of their product and market portfolios in light of the new competitive environment.  In the consumer goods industry he served the leading national companies and global corporations in projects aimed at designing their growth strategy through mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, entry to new markets as well as into other businesses and categories, and e-commerce, valuation of companies, and organizational restructuring.  In retail he collaborated with the major building materials and supermarket chains in Mexico helping to design their growth strategy, improve the performance of their process management, direct sales force management and develop and implement marketing and pricing strategies.

He has authored contributions on productivity and International competitiveness, and collaborated with several higher-education, cultural, arts, non-for-profit and social service institutions.  He is a founding member of Metropoli 2025 and of the board of Universidad Iberoamericana, Promujer, the National Arts Museum and of Instituto de Fomento e Investigación Educativa. He has authored several articles on urban productivity.

Prior to joining McKinsey, Mr. Purón worked at the Department of Special Studies of Ingeniería Panamericana, at the Instituto Mexicano del Petróleo, and at Polioles, S. A., where he had experience in planning, technological evaluation, systems development and project control.

He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering (Summa Cum Laude) from the Universidad Iberoamericana, and was a candidate for the master's degree in Chemistry.  He also earned an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

Since retirement Antonio is devoting the bulk of his time to three projects he is passionate about:  1) Giving a high-quality alternative to children currently dependent an poor-quality public basic education so that they can become competitive in a global society, 2) Influencing public policy to revert the current vicious circle of agricultural policies-extreme poverty-migration and 3) Changing the monopolistic control that political parties' leaderships exert on the political process in Mexico.

He is currently an associate fellow of CIDAC (independent think-tank) and participates in the boards of Banco Santander, Nadro, S.A. (JV of McKesson in Mexico), Munal (National Arts Museum), Progresemos (agricultural microfinance) and Centro de Colaboración Cívica (chapter of Partners for Democratic Change).

CO-SPONSORED BY COMPARATIVE POLITICS

Today is the last day of the Year of the Tiger in Vietnam. Tomorrow is the Year of the Cat (while in China it is Year of the Rabbit).

There was so much talk about Vietnam being an Asian Tiger in the past. Now, there is a growing concern about the country getting into the "middle-income trap." There is a real risk that the country might turn out to be just a cat and not a tiger.

The Party is aware of that threat and is struggling to find the right path to accelerated prosperity for the people while maintaining political monopoly.

This talk will be from the perspective of a man on the ground and will try to separate the smoke from the fire and find the heat.

Mr. Kien Duk Trung Pham is currently the Chairman of Red Bricks Group, a private investment firm. He is the founder of the Vietnam Foundation and the Vice Chairman of the VietNamNet Media Group, the leading multi-channel media company in Vietnam. Prior to VietNamNet he was the founding executive director of the Vietnam Education Foundation.

In business, Mr. Pham was a market development executive in Fortune 500 companies as well as an entrepreneur in technology and consulting startups. In government, he served in the executive branch under Presidents Reagan and Bush, as well as in the U.S. Senate. He has established nonprofit foundations to assist college students, orphans, and the handicapped in Vietnam. Mr. Pham is publicly recognized for his leadership and management abilities.

Mr. Pham is active in international affairs. In 1986, he was chosen a Young Leader by the American Council on Germany, and in 1992 a U.S.-Japan Leadership Fellow by the Japan Society. In 1993, he was elected as a term-member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a participant in the American Assembly. Mr. Pham was the founder and chairman of the Vietnam Forum Foundation, a U.S. nonprofit organization that provides college scholarships, schools, and orphanage support in Vietnam. He was also a Board member of the Vietnam Assistance for the Handicapped, a leading humanitarian program to help war victims. In 1996, Mr. Pham was a recipient of the "Never Fear, Never Quit" Award.

Mr. Pham grew up in Saigon, Vietnam. In 1977, at the age of 19, he led his family on a high sea escape and came to the United States where they settled in Colorado. Mr. Pham became a factory worker, learned English, and later attended college on scholarship. He received a BS in marketing and international business from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and won a scholarship to study in England. His graduate degrees, earned concurrently at Stanford University, include an MBA in international and organizational management, an MA in international economics, and a special diploma in public policy management. In 1990, Stanford University named Mr. Pham among of the "Most Outstanding Alumni" in the school's 100 years of history. Mr. Pham is former White House Fellow and a recipient an honorary JD degree from Pfeiffer University.