Executive Sweets

SOUTH VIET NAM

They looked like lotus blossoms in their pastel ao dai, sweeping by the aging buildings of Harvard Yard. The blossoms were 46 frail South Vietnamese businesswomen, aged 25 to 45, who last week, after a brief stopover in Washington, moved into a Radcliffe College dormitory and began attending the International Marketing Institute's classes held at Harvard Business School.

During the next five weeks, their dark almond eyes will beam on a group of lecturers from business schools in the Boston area, and their stiletto-like fingernails will flick through books on such subjects as real estate management, production cost analysis and product marketing. Then they will visit major U.S. industrial firms, dropping in on General Mills or IBM or Mobil Oil to get a firsthand look at how their male counterparts in the U.S. turn a profit.

In South Viet Nam's war-inflated economy, building has boomed and new enterprises have sprung up in the major cities. With so many men off in the military and government, private businesses often have a wife, widow or mother in the executive suite. Today, these size3 executives are supervising factories in Cholon or latching onto pieces of real estate in Saigon.

To make the long trip, the feminine merchants from South Viet Nam paid their own plane fare, while the U.S. Agency for International Development picked up part of the balance. In class, the little women sit daintily on the edges of their chairs avidly scribbling notes on U.S. management techniques into their big red notebooks. "We want you to remember," they were told by Stuart L. Mandell, professor of marketing at Lowell Technological Institute, "that you will have to face many factors in business, but the biggest factor is you--the boss." It appeared, however, that they were pretty well aware of their business status. Mrs. Tran Thi Muoi, 43, who owns a textile company, is advised by her husband, a retired army captain. But, says she, "I make all the decisions."

The ladies have definite ideas of what they expect to gain from their visit. Says Mrs. Nguyen Thi Hai, 45, president of Nguyen Thi Hai Pharmaceutical Co.: "Until now, France was our model in business. Now it is the United States." Miss Nguyen Thi Dong Thanh, 31, a teacher turned manager of the Merry Realm Juice Milk Co., is anxious to learn enough to "catch up with my other friends who are in business." A younger businesswoman, Miss Truong Thi Bich Tuy, 25, runs Saigon's Socipha Drug Company, which is owned by her father. Why is she at Harvard? "Too many times, I must ask help from my brothers-in-law," she sighs. "After learning here, I will be able to run the company myself."

Perhaps the Vietnamese visitors will leave behind a few business lessons of their own. One dainty entrepreneur spotted a costume ring in a Cambridge jeweler's window. It caught her fancy and she went inside to buy it, Asian-style. As she explains it: "I ask how much. He says seven dollar. I offer three. He say no, seven. I offer him four--say no more. He sell for four."

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