Keystoners

🟧 Leadership Coaching for Vietnam's cross-cultural reality
When high-performing leaders don't stall in Vietnam, China or across Asia because they’re unqualified. They stall because culture changes the rules, and no one hands them the new playbook.
Some arrive here and get blindsided.
Others lead from here, and get misread out there.
That’s where I come in.
At Keystoners, I coach expats and global Vietnamese leaders to fast-track their credibility, influence, and impact in Vietnam, without losing who they are.
You’ve delivered before.
But here, the logic changes. Trust builds differently. Missteps erode momentum quietly - and early.

🟧 I help leaders:
	•	Be respected from Day 1 - without over-adapting or shrinking.
	•	Decode unspoken cultural signals and lead with clarity under pressure.
	•	Navigate Vietnam with confidence, respect, and real traction.
	•	Scale their leadership presence across borders - grounded, credible and real.
My approach blends sharp business instinct with deep cultural fluency and performance coaching.
Not theory. Not textbook models. Just clarity, traction, and transformation - fast.

🟧 Trusted by:
	•	Expats in Vietnam → To be respected from Day 1
	•	Global Vietnamese → To scale across cultures
	•	HR & Talent Leaders → To accelerate integration and team trust
Cross-cultural performance isn’t a soft skill - it’s your edge.

⬛ Global Leadership Coaching • Cross-Cultural Leadership • Vietnam & China & Southeast Asia

Global Leadership Coach • Consultant • Founder

Antler

Developed startup strategies and market expansion models with agility, explored innovative business models, and collaborated with founders & investors in a global venture-building program.

Entrepreneur in Residence

Independent Professional Development

Transitioned from corporate leadership to focus on executive coaching, leadership transformation, and career resilience. 

This period was a deliberate investment in refining my approach—combining leadership, career, and executive coaching with a mind-body connection for high-performance leadership.
🔸 Earned certifications from iPEC & NASM, strengthening expertise in leadership coaching and resilience.
🔸 Explored leadership agility & self-mastery, shaping my unique coaching framework for global leaders.
🔸 Guided executives & rising leaders through strategic transitions, helping them accelerate impact & career growth.
🔸 Embraced the philosophy of impact-driven leadership—as Mother Teresa said, “What has been given to you is not to be kept but to be shared.”

This transition led to the creation of Keystoners, where I now coach global leaders such as executives, managers, young professionals, and organizations to strengthen leadership pipelines, enhance decision-making, and drive sustainable business impact.

🟧 Let’s connect or explore my work at Keystoners: 
👉 https://s.mtrbio.com/coachjuliesivan

Executive & Leadership coaching development • Professional Development

AB InBev APAC

Led marketing & commercial strategy, driving business growth, market expansion, and brand leadership. Managed cross-functional teams and developed high-impact strategies in a competitive industry.

Country Marketing Head • Partner

Led innovation strategy, product development, and market expansion for AB InBev China, driving business growth through disruptive product innovation and strategic partnerships.

Marketing Director, Innovation • Partner

Led portfolio strategy, project management, and cross-functional execution, ensuring alignment between business objectives and market expansion priorities. Drove strategic decision-making, operational efficiency, and high-impact marketing initiatives.

Marketing Director, PPM & PMO • Partner

Supported portfolio strategy and project management, ensuring operational alignment between marketing, commercial, and business objectives. Played a key role in optimizing processes, improving cross-functional collaboration, and driving execution efficiency.

Associate Marketing Director, PPM & PMO

CEIBS MBA Programme

Completed a globally ranked MBA program, deepening expertise in strategy, leadership, and business innovation. Specialized in cross-cultural leadership, strategic decision-making, and market expansion, reinforcing my ability to drive impact at the executive level.

MBA • CEIBS (China Europe International Business School)

Construction project funding

Founder & Consultant

Sonepar

Group Consolidation & Reporting Controller

Publicis Groupe

Autodistribution

Consolidation and Reporting Controller

Group Consolidation controller

What I help solve
High-performing leaders in & from Vietnam, China, across Asia don't stall because they lack skills.
They stall because culture rewrite the rules, and no one hands you the new playbook.

Whether you're an expat in Vietnam, or a global Vietnamese working across borders, chances are:
• you’re adapting fast, but trust stays thin.
• you’re delivering results, but early missteps cost momentum.
• you sense the codes, but playing them feels like shrinking.
• you need traction now, but trial-and-error is too expensive.

This isn’t about starting over.
It’s about becoming the leader who lands: clearly, credibly, and fast.

What I offer
Cross-cultural leadership coaching.
No textbook theory. Just results that stick.
Visible credibility. Trusted leadership. Faster alignment.

•  Decode cultural cues - without compromising who you are.
•  Earn trust early - so your influence grows.
•  Lead with a global presence that lands locally.
•  Perform under pressure - with clarity, resilience, and results from Day 1.

Because when your leadership lands,
➝ Projects move faster
➝ Teams align quicker
➝ Impact becomes visible
➝ Trust compounds

Who I work with
I coach leaders who are navigating Vietnam’s complexity to build trust fast, land their leadership, and scale culture:
• Expats in Vietnam or relocating soon → Gain traction and respect, without missteps.
• Global Vietnamese → Scale your impact across cultures.
• HR & Talent Leaders → Build culture that sticks. Accelerate onboarding. Keep top talent.

Why clients trust me
I coach for performance where it counts:
On the ground. Under pressure. Across cultures.

• Cross-cultural in my DNA → French-Vietnamese. Born into it. Built a career through it.
• Proven business leader → 20 years in France, China & Vietnam. Rose to Partner at AB InBev.
• Fluent in growth under pressure → Led teams in Finance, Marketing & Innovation, where speed and ambiguity collide.
• Performance coaching that sticks → Strategic clarity. Grounded leadership. Physical resilience.
• Proven operational ROI → Faster ramp-up. Tighter team trust. Shorter lead times. Sharper execution.

Ready to land stronger?
Let's talk : that's the best way to check whether I can help you (link in bio & featured section)

Keystoners by Julie Sivan 
Global Leadership Coaching • Cross-Cultural Leadership • Vietnam | China | Asia

P.S. French-Vietnamese. Been the outsider, the bridge, the decision-maker. 20 years of global leadership. Ex-partner at AB InBev. Still no superpowers, just hard-earned clarity and cross-cultural scars.

"Why doesn't it feel safe to be honest?"
In Vietnam, speaking up can look like stepping out of the line.

You ask your team for honest opinions.
You get silence.

They DO have thoughts.
But sharing them feels like defiance.

In Vietnam, disagreement isn't just risky.
It's a performance of disrespect.

You think you're building trust by inviting debate.
They think you're testing loyalty by watching who speaks up.

That's the invisible gap.

Vietnam is at the crossroads of two cultural forces:
→ Avoids confrontation: disagreeing feels like disrespect
→ Hierarchical: the leader decides
per data of Erin Meyer's #TheCulturalMap

When you push for open debate, you're not building engagement. You're creating stress.

Your team isn't resisting. 
They're protecting relationships.

The cost shows up later:
Slow execution. No buy-in. Quiet exits.

What actually works:
Instead of: "What do you think about this approach?"
Try: "I need your help to make this better. What am I missing?"

Instead of: "Does anyone disagree?"
Try: "I want to test this with you privately. Can we talk after?"

Instead of: "Let's talk about this as a team."
Try: "I'd like your input before I finalize this. Coffee tomorrow?"

Frame disagreement as helping you succeed, 
not challenging your authority.

Give people private channels to be honest.
A 1:1 conversation. A follow-up message.

Then decide clearly.
Don't ask for input and then ignore it.
Don't leave things ambiguous.
Say: "Thanks for your feedback. Here's what we're doing and why."

Clarity gives them confidence to execute.
Ambiguity makes them wait for you to decide anyway.

In Vietnam, influence isn't earned by being right in the room. It's earned by making it safe to be honest outside of it.

My clients don't force "Western-style" debate.
They adapt how trust gets built.
And their teams move faster because of it.

Ready to build trust without breaking honesty?

Julie Nguyen Sivanthaphanith

The Leadership Coach for Expats in Vietnam & Global Vietnamese • I make sure you thrive in & from this Culture | Corporate & Individual trainings

No alternative text description for this image

Your Vietnamese team turned control freak.
Except, they only do because they can't talk to you.
So... still think it's cultural?

Last quarter, a Canadian VP hired an agency to help his Vietnamese team launch a product.
By Week 2, they bombarded the agency with requests.

The VP: "Vietnamese need to control every little thing."
His team: "We can't ask him, so we'll ask them."
That's not delegation.
That's abandonment dressed up as control.

With Erin Meyer's #TheCultureMap scales to decode:
🇻🇳 The team expects hierarchical, top-down leadership.
🇨🇦 The VP leads egalitarian and consensual.
→ Opposite corners.

He signals: "Let's explore together."
They hear: "He hasn't given direction, so we can't act."

So they couldn't delegate confidently to the agency.
And tried to cover all bases, drowning in updates, requests, cc's...
Not control. Panic management.

They took charge of the one thing they 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 control: the agency. Because that’s where they felt safe.

Now let's clarify something:
→ Direction isn’t executional orders.
→ Direction is strategic clarity: "Launch by Q2. You own timeline and agency scope. I approve messaging. Budget: $50K."
Without that, the team spirals into micromanagement and paralysis.

To lead effectively in Vietnam (Quadrant IV):
→ Give clear direction upfront: goal, authority boundaries, what you decide vs. what they decide.
→ Create hierarchy-safe input channels: Not "Challenge me in meetings." Instead: "Send your thoughts after you've considered them."

I help foreign leaders cut decision cycles by 40% through specific diagnostic frameworks that show exactly where your leadership style clashes with Vietnamese workplace culture.

Are you the bottleneck?
How much longer before you fix it?

More about the quadrants in the comments.

Psychological safety isn't a feeling, it's a system.
In many countries, it runs on 𝘳𝘶𝘭𝘦𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴.
In Vietnam, on 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱𝘴.

Three weeks before launch, his team finally told him. They thought he knew about this critical blocker...

He'd done everything right... in his system.
Clear KPIs. Open door policy.
"I want honest feedback" in every meeting.

But his team stayed polite. Distant. Safe.

In performance-first cultures, psychological safety is a rulebook.
You feel safe when:
→ standards are transparent.
→ the leader protects meritocracy.
→ permission to fail is explicit

In relationship-first cultures like Vietnam, it's a social contract. You feel safe when:
→ hierarchy is humanized.
→ the leader protects harmony.
→ relationships absorb tension.
See below map from Erin Meyer’s #TheCulturalMap

My client was leading on Autopilot mode, performing leadership to an audience that wouldn't engage.
But Vietnam runs on something else.

So he changed gears.

Stopped optimizing for speed. Started investing in trust.
Coffee chats asking about families and weekends.
1-on-1s before big decisions.
Showed up as a person, not a title.

It felt slow. Inefficient. Wrong.
Until it worked.

His team started coming to him. 
Early. Openly. Proactively.
Not because he asked for it. 
Because they trusted him.

He wasn't the nice outsider anymore.
He was their leader.

The 4-step system we built during our sessions:

#𝟭. 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 preconditions for safety
Informal touchpoints. Visible consistency.
Predictability + humanity = trust.

#𝟮. 𝗘𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 feedback without loss of face
Pre-align 1-on-1 before going public.
Use phrasing that protects dignity 𝘢𝘯𝘥 surfaces reality.

#𝟯. 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗳𝘆 decisions
Define transparent decision boundaries.
Publicly thank dissenters.

#𝟰. 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗿 loops
Repair fast after conflicts. Reflect together as a ritual.
Name your own missteps.

When you get this right:
→ People know 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 and 𝘩𝘰𝘸 to speak up.
→ Relationships become buffers, not barriers.
→ Hierarchy becomes a frame for care, not a wall of fear.

You can't skip relationships to get to performance.
Not here.

graphical user interface, text, application

In Vietnam, KPIs & OKRs align targets.
But not people...

You feel it every Monday.
Ideal plans... dying in execution.
Nods in meetings. No pushback. No spark.
Silence. Disconnection.

They don't disagree.
They just can't 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 themselves inside your version of success.

Yes, your teams don't just want to deliver success.
They want to 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 it.

And in Vietnam, that feeling matters.
When they can't feel it, they don't move.

Most leaders stop at metrics.
But the 𝗣𝗶𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 is the full set:

1. 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 → the KPI.
2. 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 → the OKR.
3. 𝗕𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁 → what people do differently.
4. 𝗘𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 → what it feels like when you've arrived.

Without those last two, alignment stays logical, not human.

An Australian exec I coached learned this the hard way.
Weekly meeting with his 12-person sales team.
Clicked to slide three. Read the Q4 target out loud.
"By Q4, we reach 7% market share. Sales reps pitch clients without my approval."

They nodded. Took notes. Asked no questions.
He left thinking: alignment achieved.

Two weeks later, he checked in.
Not a single rep had pitched a client solo.
Nothing moved.

They didn't hear empowerment. They heard distance. Like he was stepping back because they weren't good enough. Or worse, like he didn't care what happened next.

We reframed:
"We'll capture 7% market share, and each of you will close deals that make you proud. My role shifts from checking to celebrating."

Same KPI. Same OKR. Different energy.
Now they could 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 the success.

KPI tells you if you've arrived.
OKR gets you moving.
The Picture of Success makes people want to walk with you.

Because in task-first cultures, clarity creates trust.
In relationship-first cultures like Vietnam, connection does.

When teams 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 the experience of success, they create momentum.

You need two languages as a leader here.
→ One your board understands: metrics, milestones, margins.
→ One your team can feel: pride, progress, belonging.

The gap between them is where execution dies.

Leadership isn't about aligning work.
It's about helping people see themselves inside the win.

When they can picture that, they move... fast.

What would your team's picture of success 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 like in Vietnam?
What would they do differently next week?

You know you shouldn't ask for direct feedback in Vietnam.
But you do it anyway.

Your leadership autopilot overrides everything you know about Vietnamese culture.
And it's blocking every result here.

You know it doesn't work here. You've read about it. Maybe even discussed it. But your autopilot takes over.

Because that speed system took you years to build.
It got you promoted. Twice.
It feels right. It screams:
"Ask directly. Move faster. Fix it now. Iterate."
So you do. Again and again.
And still... no feedback.

It works. Just not here. At least not at the beginning.

Your team isn't withholding ideas because they're passive. They're managing around you because you're unpredictable.

To build trust, you need relationships.
To build relationships, they need to know you.
To know you, you need to be predictable.
Predictability → Knowing you → Relationship → Trust → Performance

They watch how you handle a team member's mistake in a meeting. Whether you protect face or expose it. They notice if your priorities shift daily or stay consistent for months.

Unlearning years of autopilot is brutal.
It feels slow. Wrong. Like wasting time. It's not.
You're building foundation.

When you build predictability first, you unlock speed later. Real speed.
Faster than your old system ever delivered.
Because now decisions stick. Teams move.
Trust accelerates everything.
But knowing doesn't stop the autopilot.

To shift systems, you need 2 keys:
→ understand why your team behaves the way they do.
→ practice with conscious choices: every day, every interaction.

Where does your autopilot still take over when you lead here?
That's the transformation I help leaders achieve.

taplio

Julie Nguyen Sivanthaphanith's Linkedin Analytics

Julie Nguyen Sivanthaphanith

Performance ScoreJulie Nguyen Sivanthaphanith's LinkedIn Performance

Julie Nguyen Sivanthaphanith's Best Posts (last 30 days)

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

.css-6ytdur{background-image:linear-gradient(284deg, rgba(39, 43, 72, 1) 0%, rgba(33, 47, 183, 1) 100%);color:transparent;-webkit-background-clip:text;background-clip:text;}Julie Nguyen Sivanthaphanith's Linkedin Analytics

Julie Nguyen Sivanthaphanith

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Julie Nguyen Sivanthaphanith's LinkedIn Performance

Julie Nguyen Sivanthaphanith's Best Posts .css-1emoo84{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:400;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);}(last 30 days)

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Julie Nguyen Sivanthaphanith's Linkedin Analytics

Performance ScoreJulie Nguyen Sivanthaphanith's LinkedIn Performance

Julie Nguyen Sivanthaphanith's Best Posts (last 30 days)