The AuTHORs
Sam Van
Sam Van is a US citizen who was born in Vietnam and currently lives and works in New York City. He has listed more than seventy companies on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq. These companies have a combined market value of $7 billion and operate across Asia, Europe, and the USA.
Sam’s engagement with Vietnam began in 2005 when Prime Minister Phan Van Khai visited the United States. He has since played a pivotal role in fostering ties between Vietnam and the global financial community by facilitating and hosting numerous Vietnamese leaders, including former presidents and prime ministers, in ceremonial bell-ringing events at the NYSE and Nasdaq. These were symbolic milestones that spotlighted Vietnam’s economic progress on the world stage.
Beyond these moments of recognition, Sam has also been instrumental in organizing strategic economic discussions between the U.S. and Vietnamese business communities, laying the groundwork to attract significant investment into Vietnam. His efforts have helped bridge opportunities and strengthen business and economic collaboration between the two nations.
From 2012 to 2017, he had various roles at the nonprofit Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), including Trading and Financial Compliance Examinations, Financial Risk Oversight & Operational Regulation, and Sales Practice. Sam's experience includes eleven years as the Director of New Business Development for the NYSE before joining FINRA. His main responsibility was to facilitate the initial public offerings of Asian companies listed on the NYSE. Prior to this, Sam helped the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) by liquidating an asset that was considered a national security risk. He did this as co-chair and trustee member of a $400 million investment transaction.
He currently holds positions as an independent director of several well-known public companies listed on US exchanges and leading private enterprises in Asia. He serves as a Senior Board Advisor at RKtech, a prominent international software company. Sam also serves as the honorary chairman of the board of directors for VietChallenge, an annual startup competition that aims to connect and support entrepreneurs of Vietnamese origin worldwide.
Sam holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from St. John's University and an MBA from Cornell University.
Sam Korsmoe
Sam Korsmoe is an American from the state of Montana. He lived and worked in Asia from 1985 to 2004 (2.5 years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines, 4.5 years in Taiwan as an English teacher, teacher trainer, and writer and then 11.5 years in Vietnam as a business journalist and entrepreneur) and then again from 2014 to the present day (four years in Shanghai and eight years in HCM City as a writer, teacher, and education consultant). All in, he has been living and working in Vietnam for nearly 20 years over a 35-year time span (1990 to the present).
Sam is the author of five published books. Saigon Stories, an oral history of Vietnam (2006), A World Gone Mad for Marathons, a nonfiction book on marathons and other sporting events (2019), Vietnam – Asia’s Rising Star, a book about the future of Vietnam (October 2023 in English and August 2024 in Vietnamese), and Never Say No, a memoir that he helped to write for the author Ken Atkinson (2025). This book, 40 Years of Innovators which profiles 25 key leaders of the Doi Moi (economic reform) era of Vietnam, is his fifth book.
Sam is the founder and lead instructor of the Saigon Writers Club which hosts private and in-person creative writing classes for people who have always wanted to write and publish fiction. It has hosted 20 creative writing classes and published five short story anthologies. Sam writes and publishes two newsletters, a weekly newsletter on Vietnam’s economic developments and a bi-weekly newsletter on sports. The newsletters have an average open rate of more than 50 percent.
Sam is also the founder and race director of the Greater Yellowstone Adventure Series, a seven-event race series in the Yellowstone region of America. Every year the races attract several hundred athletes from around the United States and several foreign countries. On July 11, 2026, the keystone race, the Madison Marathon, will be in its 19th year.
Sam has written extensively on business, culture, education, and sports for several publications. He has published numerous market and industrial research reports about Vietnam and Cambodia for various companies and foreign governments while managing Mekong Research, a market research consultancy that he founded in Vietnam in 1997. He has been interviewed numerous times by international media including the New York Times, CNN, BBC, Financial Times, Reuters, VTV’s Talk Vietnam, Vietnam Today’s Vietnam 360, numerous Vietnamese publications, and other regional publications. He has traveled to nearly every country in Asia for extended trips. He has studied and can speak Vietnamese (fluent), Mandarin Chinese (survival), and the Philippine dialect of Chavacano (near fluency).
Sam has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Montana State University and a Master of Arts in International Studies from the University of Washington. His Master of Art’s thesis was on the renovation reforms (Doi Moi) of Vietnam. He currently lives in the Thao Dien District of Ho Chi Minh City.