Dinh Hai Lam

Chief of Party, Vietnam

Mr. Dinh Hai Lam is an expert agribusiness consultant and manager with more than 13 years of experience in assisting entrepreneurs and farmers in Vietnam to improve their economic well-being in a socially, economically and environmentally sustainable manner. Mr. Dinh’s expertise includes the identification of interventions to improve markets for smallholder households, agribusiness enterprises, technologies and the forging of public-private partnerships, especially in rural areas. He currently serves as chief of party for ACDI/VOCA’s Sustainable Cocoa Enterprise Solutions for Smallholders (SUCCESS) Alliance program in Vietnam, which develops and strengthens the newly established cocoa industry. Mr. Dinh manages all project activities which cover 6 provinces in the south of Vietnam including the provision of training to 19,000 farmers. Previously, he acted as the deputy director of ACDI/VOCA’s USDA-funded Rural Business Service Development project in Vietnam, which improved the growth and competitiveness of private enterprises through business development service markets in the Mekong Delta. He also was the deputy team leader of ACDI/VOCA’s Asian Development Bank-funded Rural Business Support project, which assisted the State Bank of Vietnam to improve the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development’s lending procedures for SMEs and to establish rural business services centers (RBCs). The RBCs were structured as fee-based, demand-driven entities that offered services to rural business entrepreneurs and were therefore not only sustainable, but profitable as well. Previous to ACDI/VOCA, Mr. Dinh worked as an agricultural researcher and transferring technology staff member for the Institute of Agricultural Genetics and was responsible for transferring new farming techniques to farmers at a grassroots level. In Vietnam, Mr. Dinh earned a B.S. in agriculture from the Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry, a B.S. in investment economics from the National Economics University, and a M.S. in agricultural sciences from the Vietnam Agricultural Sciences Institute. He speaks native Vietnamese and fluent English.