
Pauline Nguyen
Pauline Nguyen has the skills to connect with her audience in a profound way – she helps awaken and focus people to change their own story for a better future.
Pauline Nguyen is a best-selling author and award-winning businesswoman – and her achievements are all the more impressive for her having escaped Vietnam on a boat and survived a Thai refugee camp. She has overcome these adverse beginnings to transform her approach to success by re-engineering her beliefs, questioning the status quo and hacking cultural norms to become one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs.
As the owner of Red Lantern the most awarded Vietnamese restaurant in the world, in 2012 Pauline won the Australian Telstra Business Award for Medium Business. However, that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Pauline’s achievements; her memoir, Secrets of the Red Lantern, has been critically acclaimed around the world and appeared in numerous bestseller lists. She holds a BA in Communications from the University of Technology, Sydney, and in 2008 won Newcomer Writer of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards.
Pauline has achieved outstanding success as an entrepreneur, author, businesswoman and acclaimed speaker with the unique ability to connect with her audience in a profound way, empowering them to change their story for a better future.
Pauline is an original ‘Rare Bird’ – one of Australia’s top 50 influential female entrepreneurs – and is included in Blackwell and Hobday’s global recognition of 200 Women Who Will Change the Way You See the World.
She has a high-performing Western business background combined with an Eastern slant of spirituality - and her unique philosophy is taught with warmth and humour, telling her own story of what can be achieved through key alignment of thoughts and intentions.
Pauline took us on a journey, she made us laugh, she made us cry and she inspired us to improve ourselves. Pauline connected with us, touched us all and left us forever changed.
Women in Digital Programs Lead, Australian Public Service Commission (APSC)
Every so often, there is a speaker who graces a stage and creates a seismic shift in the energy of the room. Pauline Nguyen knows how to transfer her knowledge and experience in a way that creates inspired and insightful opportunities for change and growth.
Mirjana Novkovic, Co-Chair, 2022 Engage IASB
Pauline was highly responsive to the audience, enthralling and capturing their creative minds. We highly recommend Pauline as a speaker who succeeds in exposing leaders to the limitless landscapes of leadership.
WA Secondary School Executives Association
Pauline’s presentation was breathtaking, mind blowing and one of the best leadership keynote speakers I have ever heard. She was raw, vulnerable, generous, open and so insightful. I am truly blown away. If anyone hasn’t heard her speak, they need to!
Managing Director Modere Australia
An incredible share of values, insights and transformation. Pauline’s presentation style made me feel like she and I were the only people in the room.
Business Development Manager – OSTRO
My speaking topics...
The Warchest of a Modern Leader
For the life of a modern entrepreneur, the highly competitive business environment is a battlefield. And as resolute, strong and prepared as you are as a warrior, without an adequate war chest, you don’t stand a chance against the enemy.
Pauline explains the necessity in our day and age to utilise The War Chest of a Modern Leader in entrepreneurial battle. The War Chest of a Modern Leader is full of powerfully practical and sustainable ways we can not only improve as leaders, but also win the entrepreneurial battle against our adversaries.
In this keynote audiences learn:
- How to take radical personal responsibility for your own personal and professional development
- How to remain calm and intelligent in the face of adversity
- How to lead with vulnerability, compassion, and competence – with Power and not Force
- How rest is a weapon and how to utilise it effectively
- The importance of a wise counsel to a warrior
- Why the best offense is a good defense Who should be in your phalanx
It’s Time to Disrupt the Disruption
These last couple years have proved one certainty - there is no certainty. The pandemic has shown itself to be a black swan - an unseeable anomaly that has changed the way we conduct ourselves as a society, as people and as businesses. But, as Charles Darwin famously noted, “It is not the strongest of species that survive, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change.”
The recent business disruption the world over has been rife; upending industries, creating tailwinds and forcing entrepreneurs to rapidly adapt to the new normal. Pauline explains the ways your business can pivot and adapt to business disruption, starting with the most important foundation in your business - you.
As a working CEO herself, Pauline has been right there in the trenches for two decades. Since 2020, she has pivoted multiple businesses to not only survive during the uncertainty of the global pandemic, but to thrive. As Pauline says, “Business development cannot happen without business disruption first.” Audiences learn:
- How to deal with crisis and using it as an opportunity
- How to master the process, not the outcome
- That people don’t have business problems, they have personal problems that reflect in their business
- How to navigate the seemingly un-navigable future
- Actionable strategies and takeaways for the new business paradigm
Leading the New Paradigm of Work
The pandemic has ensured that the way we work will never be the same again. It has accelerated a trend that has slowly been developing - a new, hybrid workspace consisting of both remote working and in-person traditional work.
But, this new paradigm has come with its own unique set of challenges. Lockdowns, isolation and at-home work have contributed significantly to mental health problems, which aren’t just terrible in their own right, but adversely affect our working capacity. Stress and anxiety have become commonplace, with the difficulty to disconnect work and personal life being one of the leading problems with current employees.
So, how do we approach work in this new paradigm? Pauline explains how the new zeitgeist is developing and how you and your workforce can take advantage of it. Pauline distils twenty years of human management into actionable takeaways on the new world of work. Audiences learn:
- How to lead teams effectively in the new work paradigm with calm courage, resonating resilience and tacit grit
- How to disconnect and reconnect to and from work and personal life
- How to manage feelings of displacement, confusion and trauma
- Scientifically proven strategies to deal with stress
- How to curate the optimal work environment for physical and mental harmony
The Four Pivotal Components of Evolving Leadership
Diversity & Inclusion, Vulnerable Leadership, Self Mastery, Self Leadership
A broad and dynamic keynote, in this powerful experience Pauline explains four of the most pivotal components in becoming a successful leader. This isn’t your regular business coaching speech - dive into deep, controversial and complex topics, distilled eloquently for execution today.
Pauline explains the importance of self-mastery, required before mastering anything else in life. Drawing on learnings from running the world’s most awarded Vietnamese restaurant, Red Lantern, she imparts why true leaders hold others accountable whilst being ‘compassionately assertive’. That those who want to be part of the new future of leaders must walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
From her experience coming to Australia as a refugee and eventually garnering accolades including being one of Australia’s Top 50 Influential Female Entrepreneurs, and worldwide recognition as one of 200 Women Who Will Change the Way You View the World, Pauline explains why the greatest leaders of our time lead with diversity and inclusion not as just social responsibilities, but as powerful weapons for business.
Find out why The Huffington Post described Pauline as “the most grounded spiritual entrepreneur on the planet”. Audiences learn:
- Diversity and Inclusion – How embracing multiple perspectives leads to more powerfully effective problem-solving skills
- Vulnerable Leadership – How to lead with power and not force
- Self Mastery – How to manage your energy and your emotions to become the most calm ,and composed Leader
- Self Leadership - What do Leaders Do? They go first. How to scientifically increase your intuition and awareness to intelligently lead your team with competence, courage and charisma
Secrets of the Red Lantern
Pauline Nguyen's highly acclaimed restaurant The Red Lantern offers progressive business leaders a vast swathe of practical takeaways and invaluable networking. Pauline sheds light on new concepts and shares insights from operating the most awarded Vietnamese restaurant in the world.
The Secrets of the Red Lantern is a collaborative event where high achievers come together, break bread and tell tales. But this isn’t your regular networking event – Pauline masterfully facilitates and coaches along the way. Each session is crafted by Pauline to bespoke fit your team's needs.
Audiences will:
- Enjoy insights and inspirations from Pauline’s award-winning book, The Way of the Spiritual Entrepreneur and find out how they can implement them in their everyday life.
- Revel in joyful, juicy and sumptuous stories paired with The Red Lantern's delightful highly regarded menu.
- See why CEOs, entrepreneurs, coaches and everyone in-between rave about the life-changing insights, actionable takeaways and skills accumulated in a single powerful meeting at Pauline Nguyen’s Secrets of the Red Lantern.
See me...
https://odemanagement.com/speaker/pauline-nguyen#sigProIde716dc90b6

The Way Of The Spiritual Entrepreneur
The Way Of The Spiritual Entrepreneur helps socially conscious, spiritually-minded entrepreneurs be fearless, stress free, and unshakable by teaching overlooked and forgotten developments in cognitive science, quantum physics, and biology that you can use to transform your life and your business today.
She wrote this book after years of encouragement from those who have heard her speak on the international stage or have worked with her, to bring her philosophy and wisdom to a larger audience. Her blend of mystic Eastern spirituality and high-performing Western business acumen make her uniquely suited to speak to entrepreneurs about rewiring your biology and rewriting your biography.
As with all her speaking and business endeavors, Pauline speaks from the heart to inspire action. She blends effective exercises, scientific proof, and relatable examples to help you live deliberately, not by default.
Her book, The Way of the Spiritual Entrepreneur is the Winner of Best Entrepreneurship and Small Business Book of the Year 2019.