The Sleepless Nights After the Trial of the Beautiful Woman

Even before going to court, you started building a completely new brand, King Coffee. Why did you decide to do that?

- In 2014, I was stripped of all power in Trung Nguyen and was not even allowed to set foot in the company. All the management data in the company was lost. The entire international customer system that I built was almost completely lost, dividends were not received... I patiently fought. Meanwhile, Trung Nguyen began to change its brand identity, from reddish brown, now to black and white. At that time, I suspected this was a conspiracy, and began to worry about who would own the brand and who would manipulate it, because at that time, Mr. Vu was still in the mountains.

In 2016, I had to establish King Coffee so that if Trung Nguyen collapsed, that asset, the 20-year-old business that my wife and I had built, would still exist somewhere, that's why there had to be King Coffee.

What does the name King Coffee mean when people still call Mr. Dang Le Nguyen Vu the King of Trung Nguyen Coffee?

- King Coffee was actually formed in 2016, at that time I opened King Coffee in the US, went to Korea, China and some other countries before returning to Vietnam. In fact, that was the measure I had to take to retain a major national brand. During the past process, I have made great efforts, especially to maintain the trust of special customers in me.

I think that for Trung Nguyen to develop globally, the name King Coffee is much more reasonable. It is easy to read, easy to remember, it is a special name in that if you go to other countries, you do not need to change to their words. For example, in Russia, names like MC Donalds, Starbucks must be changed to Russian. But King Coffee does not need to, the whole world can read it.

How do you intend to develop King Coffee? What experiences in building Trung Nguyen can you apply to King Coffee? And what do you think should be avoided?

- It is not a re-application but it continues the path, the mission, the vision as well as the strategy of building a coffee brand. Vietnam needs to move beyond just selling raw materials and needs to create added value, build brand value. That is what I am trying to do.

In the future, do you think you will have to compete with Trung Nguyen - your former brainchild?

- King Coffee is not built to destroy or compete with Trung Nguyen. No one can give birth to a second child and then destroy the first child.

A private question: Until now, do you still have any feelings for Dang Le Nguyen Vu?

- He is the one I chose. I feel I made the right choice.

After all, I don't understand why it still has to be Dang Le Nguyen Vu, when it seems like he lives in another world, when after all those storms, trust and love have been broken and hurt?

- I think that standing before the ancestral altar or the love between husband and wife is something very sacred. Mr. Vu and I have 4 children together, all of my children have the surname Dang Le. From the beginning, we also committed to go together, to build a generation for the whole family, to build a powerful coffee empire.

I believe that everything will turn out well, and what is happening is just a disaster and I have to save it. I believe that if it were Mr. Vu, he would never behave like that, and this is his illness, so we should not take it personally.

Personally, I think that when a marriage breaks down, no one wins, neither you nor Mr. Vu, the children will suffer the most. What do you think about this issue?

- I still believe that in society there are still many good people and that justice and reason must always be protected in the spirit of the rule of law. I always believe that all good things will eventually come, even though they will have to go through many difficulties and hardships. But we must try, try to protect the truth and protect the right things.

I also hope to end this matter soon so as not to affect the children. But it is the children who encourage me, they want to join hands with their mother to overcome this difficult period, to end the dispute soon and the goal is still to save their father, to save Trung Nguyen.

Thank you for this interesting exchange!