It happened in Hanoi seven years ago. Irene Öhler was moderating and speaking at a EuroCham event called “Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling” where afterward a woman named Ha Do, Senior Partner of KPMG Vietnam, approached her. She sat her down in the lobby of the hotel and said, “This is all good, but I’ve been hearing about this for a long time. What can you actually do to help our women? How are you actually going to solve these problems?” It was a punch to the gut. It was a challenge presented. It was a challenge accepted. It was the pivot point that has defined Irene’s arc in Vietnam.
From Street Cleaners To Public Figures
After 15 years working across Europe, China, Brazil, and New Zealand working as a consultant in leadership development, Irene moved to Vietnam in 2012. Upon arriving in Hanoi with her husband and their newborn child, she was immediately struck by Vietnamese women. It wasn’t a select few though, for her it was everyone. From the cleaners picking up trash on the side of the road to the influential figures in the public eye, Irene described the women she encountered as resourceful, resilient, and graceful from top to bottom. This experience sparked a personal treasure hunt to uncover more women in Vietnam and celebrate their unique stories. But, like many treasure hunt stories, there’s a dark side — every discovery reveals what’s been hidden.
In 2014 Irene founded the Women’s Storytelling Salon. In addition to the women surrounding her, she was also inspired by the salons mostly run by women that were popular during the 19th century in Vienna, Austria, where Irene’s from. Those salons were centers of conversation, incubators of culture, and a driving force shaping the nation’s identity during that period. In similar fashion, the Women’s Storytelling Salon connects women across different generations, nationalities, and sectors: Founders, CEOs, Film directors, Ambassadors, Economists. Authors, Leaders in tech, academia, charity, and more.
She originally started the salon when she was living in Hanoi, and has since hosted talks in Ho Chi Minh City when she moved in 2017. That said, regardless of what city in Vietnam she has hosted events, through listening to numerous speakers, she began to discover the hidden pressures many women face.
Character Born Out of Necessity
Inequality is a global phenomenon and no society has it all figured out, notes Irene. Furthermore, in her experience, she pointed out one of the differences between Vietnam compared to other societies is not only the pressure for women to keep the family the center of their life, but also to appear perfect 24/7 — a comment she says makes everyone laugh in her meetings. This is one of the reasons Irene says many of her conversations with women have a similar arc, “Oh my god, you’re amazing!” to “Oh my god, what has happened in your life?” Such moments of realization can stop you in your tracks and make you wonder — what circumstances result in an individual who is resourceful, resilient, and also graceful? Each of those moments in conversation reminds Irene and those that attend her salons that such character isn't something you are born with. It is something you practice, something you develop, something often born out of necessity.
It is also something important to talk about. But as Ha said to Irene in Hanoi all those years ago, the real question is, “What are you going to do about it?” For Irene, who had been on a personal treasure hunt for years, that moment marked the beginning of a different kind of ordeal — one that required her to dig deeper, to move beyond asking questions and begin working toward becoming part of the solution.
When you discover your journey’s dark side, you discover the challenge waiting for you. As Joseph Campbell wrote, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” Before she knew it COVID arrived in Vietnam, the world was changing, it was time to pivot — and she did.
Up to that point she had already been doing executive coaching for people in senior leadership positions for years. The reason being as Irene says:
We know that when leaders learn to lead themselves and others well, it makes a real difference for everyone—their teams and the whole organization.
Contributing to supporting leaders is what drives her and witnessing even small changes can have a big impact is what feels rewarding to her. Irene added that she still works with a lot of men, but when she pivoted her main focus shifted to working with aspiring women leaders. In 2019, she founded Lightpath Leadership, a coaching program rooted in Vietnamese context designed to deepen leadership identity and sustain growth via community.
An Ode to the Remarkable Women of Vietnam
Whether it’s hosting Salons or creating leadership programs, Irene’s mission has remained the same — to amplify women’s voices and make their stories visible. In addition to Lightpath Leadership and the Women’s Storytelling Salon, Irene has also devoted years to harnessing the power of stories in print. Alongside co-author Đỗ Thùy Dương, they published Ba Trieu's 21st Century Daughters: Stories of Remarkable Vietnamese Women—featuring twenty two stories of women leaders in Vietnam.The title is an ode to Bà Triệu (Lady Triệu), also known as Triệu Thị Trinh, one of Vietnam’s most legendary national heroines.
“It’s not journalism, it’s storytelling,” says Irene. “Stories are a powerful way to connect with worlds that you wouldn’t know otherwise. For foreigners, it has opened up windows into other worlds. For Vietnamese, literally not a week passes that there aren't people coming up telling me what the book meant to them.”
Stories bring people together. Stories show you are not alone. Stories reveal your similarities and differences. Beyond that, stories hold up a mirror — reflecting the parts of yourself and others you resist, the things you need to recognize and accept, and just how much there is still left to learn.
In listening to so many speakers, working with countless leaders, and capturing different lives on paper, it seems those stories have also illuminated Irene’s own resistance, her similarities and differences worth accepting, and the lessons still yet to be learned.
But Irene has also proven that, just like that moment back in Hanoi seven years ago, every salon, every program, every person presents a challenge. And if accepted, can become the beginning of a new story — one that leads you to the very cave that holds the treasure you seek.