Caroline Pham

Experiences

2020-2024: DEPUTY GENERAL DIRECTOR cum HEAD OF ACQUISITION

Company: ALO Media Join Stock Company
Company size: 30~50 staff, 100++ seasonal collaborators
Industry: TV Production/Digital Marketing/PR
Management Tools: MS365 (Sharepoint, Planner, Project...)

Deputy General Director

1. Plan the company's goals and strategy.
2. Plan, manage and optimize company's annual budget:
• Plan budget annually
• Manage administrative costs including rent, utilities, equipment, supplies, insurance policies, salaries, benefits and legal counsel, etc.
• Review and approve company's salary monthly
• Evaluate/optimize effective spending
• Negotiate costs, revenue sharing rate with partners/agencies
• Manage contracts and budget for outsource projects
3. Manage/operate/develop HR system generally:
• Build, manage and optimize working process
• Build, manage a motivative KPI system and evaluate department work results
• Build and develop compensation package
• Build career development path including technical staff and managers
• Integrate and manage the seasonal collaborators pre - during - post TV show production time.
4. Manage collaborative projects:
• Make project plans
• Monitor and manage budget, resource, progress, and optimize overall revenue
• Communicate with partners, facilitate issue resolution between all sides.
5. Build and develop relationship with domestic and foreign partners
• Connect/link the enterprise having the same industry
• Contact partners, participate/invest/co-operate new projects
• Maintain the sustainable cooperative relationships between investors, suppliers and company.
6. Research and apply technology to operate.

Head of Acquisition

1. Make plan and strategies to buy/sell international copyrights for TV Shows.
2. Contact directly gameshow/TV show copyright companies (CJ, Fremantle..) to deal and buy TV show license.
3. Build and promote company's image and company's TV format in the international copyright market.
4. Develop and expand copyright network: directly participate in international copyright fairs in Singapore, France..., connect directly with more than 250 international copyright purchasing/research/consulting enterprises.

Achievements:

• Built KPI system for creative and editorial teams, the first time applied for the television media industry.
• Developed new concept about personal P&L not only for staff earning revenue directly but also for back-office ones, based on that to evaluate the financial investment efficiency.
• First time, Vietnam's TV Show format (Whose Chance? - No. 1 reality show about jobs in Vietnam) has been successfully approved and signed o agreement by an international agency to sell to the world.
• Successfully purchased the entertainment program format (Amazing Saturday - CJ ENM), produced season 1 on VTV3 prime time every Sunday evening in 2023.

2016-2020: VALIDATION DEPARTMENT/TEAM LEADER (QA DIRECTOR/MANAGER)

Company: LG Electronics R&D Vietnam Ltd.
Industry: Automotive (Embedded Software for Car Infotainment)
Management Tools:Internal (Kanban, Bug Management, Flexible Working Register, KPI, LCD...)

2019-2020: Validation Department Leader (QA Director)

Department size: ~120++ engineers plus 50 ~80 vendor engineers

1. Manage and develop Automotive Department:
• Define Department Vision/Mission
• Define short-term and long-term development strategy for Department
• Make annual resource plan, prepare resource
• Define Team/Department annual KPI adapt to company's annual goal
• Manage two Validation Engineer Teams (size more than 60 engineers/team, 3++ sub-teams/team) including recruit/arrange resource, managing progress/quality and performance...
• Evaluate and approve working performance once per half year.
2. Enhance Department working environment including working process, KPI system and compensation packages.
3. Manage of Automotive projects:
• Develop and expand scope for Validation Department Projects (Manual and Automation ones)
• Review/approve project plans and reports made by Team Leaders
• Make resource plan to adapt project scope
• Arrange resources (including LG engineers and vendors)
• Manage project progress, project quality, performance, risks/problem/issues and report to HQ General Manager.
4. Develop Department:
• Coach and train soft skills (management, internal/external communication, problem solving...) for all manager levels for Validation Department including Test leaders, Part leaders, Team leaders
• Enhance training system concentrated on key person (technical and management lines)
• Develop communication channel between Vietnam, foreign branches and HQ.
5. Manage Improvement/Prevention System in Department level.
6. Manage Vendors:
• Review resource plan for all vendor projects
• Manage activities for vendor including interview, training, arrange resource
• Manage progress and quality
• Expand Vendors (create audit criteria, audit/evaluate new vendors).
7. Conduct management training course for Company level for Development and Validation Engineer Departments.

2016~2019: Validation Team Leader (QA Manager)

Validation size: from 1 ->12 ->65 engineers plus 30~45 vendor engineers

1. Build and develop Validation Team:
• Prepare resource: define job description, recruitment process and recruit members
• Develop resource capability: build training system and manage capability improvement
• Define long-term career path: define job levels, criteria for each level and the way to achieve one by one.
2. Build Validation Team working environment:
• Build working process
• Build training system for all levels
• Define KPI system, measure automatically
• Define assessment process (evaluate performance based on KPI commitment)
• Conduct 1:1 review periodically, share assessment result and define improvement steps.
3. Manage Automotive projects (Manual and Automation ones - Robot, ECU test tool, ATS... with C/C++/Python):
• Investigate new projects and prepare resources
• Estimate resource and arrange resources e effectively (including LG staff and vendors)
• Manage project progress, project quality and performance
• Forecast risks, define action items to migrate and prevent
• Manage problems/issues, define action items to solve and prevent
• Directly report to Korean Program Manager.

Achievements:

• Built Team successfully in short-time from the first day.
• Developed and maintained a stable team/department: TOR 6%~10% during 4 years (2016~2020).
• Built Automotive KPI System and this has been run successfully.
• Built Automotive Training System (CBL) successfully, oriented to automotive/management tasks and criteria to define career development path for both technical and management lines.
• Defined automatic management process --> Created an effective working environment, improved performance as well as staff engagement
• + A/S grade (the highest levels of performance evaluation - excellence KPI result) for 4 years continuously (A: 2016, S: 2017 ~2020).

2014-2016: QA MANAGER

Company:Dasan networks
Industry:Network devices and Software Defined Networks
Management Tools:Jira/Trello

Manage QA team including 12 people. The main responsibility:

1. Manage testing projects:
• Contact presale, post-sale teams and customer to get requirements for test projects
• Make project plan
• Plan and arrange resource for each test project.
2. Manage testing for development projects:
• Contact presale, post-sale teams and customer to get requirements
• Build HW and SW test system for Hanoi Center
• Receive test requests from customer, estimate timescales, resource for each test request
• Co-operate with R&D team to define deadline/milestone for each project then negotiate timescales and resources with head-quarter and customer
• Arrange resource allocation, manage and solve problems/issues, report progress weekly
• Manage automation test using internal ATS framework.
3. Manage QA team (12 peoples):
• Plan resource for QA team annually
• Create G&O for QA team
• Create training plan for new hires and experienced QAs
• Evaluate QA team (probation, annually)
• Plan QA resource annually
• Recruit new candidates including preparing job description, reviewing/scanning CVs and interviewing.

Achievements:

• Defined and applied manual and automation testing process for switch/terminal equipment industry.
• Developed and maintained a stable testing team (TOR: 0%).

2009-2013: QA ENGINEER & QA LEAD

Company:Novellus Vietnam (Lam Research)
Industry:Software Development for Semiconductor Manufacturing
Management Tools:Internal (Timesheet, Progress tool, Global Bug management...)

2010 - 2013: QA Lead (Test Lead): Manage QA team (7 people)

• Receive test requests from customer, estimate timescales, resource for each test request.
• Negotiate timescales and resources with Business Units (customers in San Jose)
• Arrange resource allocation
• Manage and report progress weekly
• Manage and solve problems/issues
• Create training plan for new hires and experienced QAs
• Create G&O for QA team
• Evaluate QA team annually
• Support new hire recruitment (review, select CV, and interview)
• Create QA_Vietnam report quarterly
• Responsible for testing two key products in urgent case.

2009 - 2010: QA Engineer: Be responsible for quality of two main products

• Study requirement, design
• Write test plan, test cases
• Test products
• Co-operate with India, China, US teams
• Create daily report

Lessons - Learns:

• US working style: punctuality and efficiency.
• Accuracy is extremely important in the semiconductor industry.

Achievements:

• Good performance and be selected one for new/complicated products.

2005-2009: VICE QA LEAD, SQA, TEST LEAD, BA

Company:FPT Software Corporation
Industry:Outsourcing Software Development
Management Tools:Internal (Fsoft Insight System)

2008 - 2009: Vice SQA Lead and SQA Lead

Project domain: Web/App development
Customer/Market: Japanese, Europe

Vice SQA Lead:

1. Ensure software quality of project (SQA), do Final inspection for projects.
2. Ensure process quality of project (PQA), support PMs to report to customers at the end of each stage such as unit test, integration test, ensure the adequateness and the exactness of project database.
3. Supply PM Services: Support project managers to manage human resource, check database/project issues and project progress.
4. Review and collect G27 project issues weekly.
5. Create QA report to customer monthly (a private channel to analyze and evaluate the latest status/the quality of projects, define solution to improve.
6. Conduct seminars to share experiences for new QAs.

SQA Lead:

1. Manage QA members, monthly plan effort for each QA member.
2. Check QA tasks of QA members weekly.
3. Create QA report to customer monthly (a private channel to analyze and evaluate the latest status of projects in the group).
4. Create plan to improve project quality at group level.
5. Manage project risks/issues.
6. Be responsible for SQA and PQA (Process Quality Assurance).

2006 - 2008: BA and Test Lead

Project domain: Web/App development
Customer/Market: Europe

1. Contact customer to get high level requirements.
2. Study URD and create SRS.
3. Create Project Test Plan.
4. Create Integration Test Case, System Test Case and Acceptance Test Case.
5. Peer review Integration Test Case and System Test Case for all projects in division #3.
6. Implement integration test and system test.
7. Create User Manual.
8. Training new testers.
9. Predict risks relating to the project quality and give the way to prevent.

2005 - 2006: SQA (Software Quality Assurance)

Project domain: Web/App development - Banking
Customer/Market: Japan

1. Review project database weekly.
2. Review documents, products of projects including Project Plan, Project Schedule, SRS, Design, Coding Convention, Unit Test Case, Integration Test Case, System Test Case, Performance Test Case and Acceptance Test Case.
3. Implement Final inspection (validate software package before delivering to customer to ensure that there are as few bugs as possible.