The G.E.M. Series Episode 13: How To Create Global Impact With Benny Tran 
[00:00:00] Blake: Welcome to the G.E.M series. In today's episode, I am thrilled to introduce Benny Tran. Benny is an experienced executive and strategy and project development across multiple industries, including sports and entertainment, health, sustainability, and management consulting. He has worked with the Clinton's dealing with major global issues like climate change and HIV.
[00:00:23] Blake: He's launched a basketball team in Vietnam. And he was absolutely instrumental in building the stadium for the Los Angeles football club. So what does all of this mean? It means that Benny is a master of execution. I had so many questions about how to take something from beginning to finish. So take a listen and you'll hear about what it takes to truly execute.
[00:00:47] Blake: All right. So today on the G.E.M series, I am so happy to have Benny Tran. Hey, Benny, how are you doing? Hello everyone. Great. Great. Uh, for anybody that doesn't know, Benny, uh, you know, You've worked with the, uh, the Clintons helping with, you know, dealing with major global issues like climate change and HIV.
[00:01:11] Blake: You've helped launch a basketball team in Vietnam and, uh, you've built a massive stadium and you were growing El AFC like wildfire. Um, for those that, you know, don't know before sports, what was your, what was your background? Any, 
[00:01:28] Benny: yeah, my background was in, um, actually international development. Uh, I went to public policy school for it, and also worked for the Clinton foundation on public health climate change.
[00:01:39] Benny: And then before that, I started off my career as a managing consultant. 
[00:01:42] Blake: Oh, got it. Commit. And what was, uh, it's just wild to think about that big shift, I guess, from. Going from working with the Clintons to getting into the sports world and, really, uh, helping build out the LA L and F C team. I think a key thing that I was looking at was, uh, some of your, you know, leadership skills that you've built up over time.
[00:02:05] Blake: Can you tell me a little bit, I was wanting to know, I guess, background, what was growing up like for you and, and what do you think maybe led you down this. 
[00:02:14] Benny: Yeah. You know, it's, um, I've been very fortunate to, to go down the path that I've been on. Um, it's a, it's a, not a, it's an untraditional path, but yeah, I grew up in Atlanta.
[00:02:25] Benny: Um, that's how we know VU as childhood friends with my brother and Johnathan's us, um, you know, in a very modest family, you know, we were on government programs and, um, you know, one of the biggest drivers for me was to make sure that that tag growing up, we were successful. So that, you know, that we, as the future of our family, didn't have to live in such a situation, but also for the future of the next generation of the Tran family and make sure to ensure that we're successful.
[00:02:55] Benny: And very luckily, I mean, you know, my parents worked all the time. Many of us are self-sufficient. Um, and then, you know, I have a brother and he's a tenured professor at Vanderbilt. My sister does top performers as insurance on a writer. Um, and I've had the pleasure of taking a. Um, you know, in my life that took me across around the world and across the executives.
[00:03:17] Benny: And so, um, what's interesting in high school is what really opened my mind, uh, was really one of my brothers had told me that I should learn Arabic because I was offering at our high school either Arabic or Chinese. And that was a ticket for making yourself mean being in college applications. And luckily we had a high school where that offered international studies.
[00:03:41] Benny: International baccalaureate program, but also Chinese and Arabic as options. And at the time I didn't like being anyone to do anything Asian because I came from an Asian background and I wanted to try Arabic and lo and behold, I iPhone,
[00:03:57] Benny: you know, that's kind of really put me on the path of one giddy pack, the ability to actually leave Atlanta, but then also kind of my exposure to. Um, they expect kind of experience kind of opened my eyes to my own political identity or my own ethnic background. Uh, and so that's yeah, when the high school went to study, uh, you know, summer school or, uh, that in Massachusetts and then I was sent to Egypt to study for summer, and I absolutely got hooked to traveling and learning new cultures.
[00:04:28] Benny: And then in high, in college, I went full throttle. Setting the middle east and Arabic. And then that's what I did primarily and lived in Egypt for some, I went to the Middlebury language program where you have to commit not to violate speaking a language other than that language, including English, unless you're ordering of course, like Chinese food at the restaurant down the street.
[00:04:50] Benny: Um, so all very, very cool, got exposed to new cultures, new, new people. Um, and that's kind of where I discovered. I really won't have the desire to help people in dire situations, what you need, your power levels, are very high. Um, it's a, it's a developing country. Um, I volunteer for nonprofits and so that's where I kind of planted, planted the seed in me to really pursue something international, which could have included joining the state department or diplomatic.
[00:05:25] Benny: Um, and that's kind of how it all started. Wow. Okay. 
[00:05:31] Blake: That's quite a, quite a journey. And also, I just want to say that immersive language experience. Oh my gosh. It's a, it can be, it can be pretty intense. Right? Uh, 
[00:05:42] Benny: I, I enjoyed it, you know, I loved it. Um, I think also depends on what level you are if you're, they, they actually had people beginning to study Arabic and that's what.
[00:05:53] Benny: But I was already a little 300 at the university level. So I already had pretty well, you know, the mechanics are using the language just was, came easy for me. So, the immersion wasn't too bad and I really enjoyed it. So 
[00:06:07] Blake: that's no, that's, that's incredible. Um, and as you're going through this, you. Go to Emory.
[00:06:17] Blake: Right. And then from there, you go on to Princeton. So what's your, I guess what's your mindset? I mean, have you started kind of narrow honing in on something that you're, you're really trying to go after at this point because it sounds like the world's pretty wide open right at this stage of life. 
[00:06:36] Benny: Yeah.
[00:06:36] Benny: The pathway was, I mean, even further opened up when I decided to apply. Fulbright to scholarship. And then, uh, that was, gave me the opportunity to go to Vietnam. And so it was the opportunity to explore a new part of the world. It was my heritage country, uh, which was very cool. And so, um, kind of led down the path of, you know, wanting to do the same thing, except that it was supposed to another part of the world.
[00:07:02] Benny: Um, and, and after that, you know, returned to the United States to find a job before I could apply for grad school because in grad school, the way. So, you know, in terms of mindset and goals, you know, there are goals that every step of the way, right? First of all, in high school, how do we get into college? And what do I need to do to ensure that the probability of getting into a good college looks, I got denied by a bunch of schools, including Harvard, and Duke Stanford?
[00:07:27] Benny: Uh, luckily I stuck with Emory who fortunately gave me a full scholarship to go there. And that was the best thing that happened. And then, um, when I came back from giving my full ride, I didn't have a job. So I landed at a mass. Which actually gave me a baseline of how to really approach a lot of the work that I did in my career or solving problems.
[00:07:46] Benny: And so, um, yeah, so that was with the goal of getting into one of these international studies, international development programs. So actually it had goals, but I was trying to achieve what was the, my next step to get there, especially in the early times in your career, you have to decide and understand how you become successful in that second.
[00:08:06] Benny: And in the international development sector, you essentially have to get experience before you grad school and then go to grad school in order to get a good job. And like this one where if you don't have experience, you can't even get a master's degree, but now, one's going to give you a job if you're too an experience.
[00:08:24] Benny: So to figure out the best path, because look, not a lot of people can afford to pick up, go to an African. You know, such, I had an African village try to help a village do X, Y, Z, and lets us peace Corps then has top five grad school that does this stuff. Then that continues your love of education. I think public health, the top, a couple of sectors that are so much of that, um, as opposed to getting an MBA, um, that can give you a general education to support you, to do whatever you want.
[00:08:54] Benny: I think in today's world if you go for an MBA, it's helpful in either for-profit or non-profit. Um, and also you can see the evolution of, you know, how the private sector does help with nonprofit issues or social issues, or economic development issues in developing countries. So, yeah, I mean, I think we talked about this before, where, you know, what was your goal and mindset is actually I had goals, um, that was the first step of your career, right?
[00:09:20] Benny: Do you need to decide whether you need to get a graduate degree? How and why, and then you have to get there before you even think about bigger dreams. You know, for example, um, you know, grad school, uh, for me in order to work at T if I had dreams to work in the United Nations, the world bank, you have to go to the top schools to get this all, how do I get to top schools?
[00:09:41] Benny: So that is not necessarily always true. Um, I think that's unfair to say other programs. It's just one of those things that we have to assess the probability of, you know, how do you want to chart your success with them, that particular linear. 
[00:09:57] Blake: Absolutely. Well, I think that's, uh, you know, it's, it's really fascinating to think about the way that career paths operate and, you know, I guess a parallel that I'm picking up on is, I mean, you're excellent at execution in the sense of, it sounds like you envision the end goal and you're always able to kind of navigate figure out.
[00:10:18] Blake: Cause even now you're talking about yeah. You know, like sure there's a goal, but there are steps to be able to get there and, and, uh, I just find that, uh, I find that really interesting. And you know, for me, I, something I'd love to know about is what were some of the challenges along the way, because I'm sure you uncovered some unknowns as you're going through all of this.
[00:10:41] Benny: Sure. Well, I mean, one big challenge is the unknown. You know, when you're going down a path, you don't know what will happen. So sometimes you try to maximize your upside, but at the same time, you're managing your downside risks. So, how do you manage the real downside risks? What happens if you don't get into Harvard?
[00:10:58] Benny: What do you do? If you don't get that job, you don't get what you want. Um, and you got to figure out how, what the plan is, and also not stress out about it and just make sure that there's optionality and, um, there are opportunities everywhere. And sometimes it takes pivoting. Sometimes it's just basically to, you know, You take a chance on things, right.
[00:11:17] Benny: Um, and sometimes, you know, when luck is when opportunity meets preparation, so you always have to be prepared. Um, and I feel like a lot of times, a lot of moments in my life, I've been very lucky. Um, and so we're very fortunate with the people in my life and the opportunities that have come through and it's been zigzagging like crazy.
[00:11:37] Benny: Um, but at the end of the day, You know how, I mean, we talked a little bit about going to grad school, but at the same time, how do you establish the base skillset to execute? And that's kind of what they train you a little bit in mass consulting, as you can hop on different projects to figure out problems.
[00:11:55] Benny: Um, sometimes it's just strategy sometimes operational, and sometimes that's how this one firm, or do they tap into experts within the firm? Uh, my front, we didn't have that luxury. And actually, when I moved to the Clinton foundation, leadership was actually from management consulting. So the level, same level rigor of analysis and execution.
[00:12:14] Benny: But actually, in fact, we were implementing where we're not a donor, the Clinton Foundation wasn't a donor. It was also an implementing organization. So we actually have boots on the ground doing that. Um, and that actually is something that I found and I found fascinating until today. Um, the approach of the Clinton Foundation was to, um, you can solve almost anything.
[00:12:38] Benny: So you had the people with a background of similar consultants, and then you had, of course, the medical professionals and public health professionals that provide. Yeah, high level of expertise. I remember, you know, I showed up to Tanzania and my boss, my, my, my direct boss, who was a deputy country director at the point was a, you work that begins.
[00:12:55] Benny: He's like Benny, we have a million-dollar, uh, a fund from the Swedish government. Go figure out how to treat HIV aids patients in rural areas. I was like, ok Hopped on the top of a car, went to Tanzania, and try to figure out what, uh, analyze the situation, trying to understand what was going on and see if we can actually develop a program that actually helps, um, provide medicine and keep people alive who are living with HIV, um, in rural areas.
[00:13:22] Benny: And that was kind of like a pilot model program that was supposedly replicable across the country or other parts of the world. 
[00:13:31] Blake: Wow. That's, you know, I, I can't even imagine taking on something. So, uh, so global, but what's interesting is it sounds like you're still able to bring it to, to the community. Um, tell me a little bit about that, that transition from.
[00:13:47] Blake: Uh, you know, joining, whenever you started joining with the Clintons over there, I'd love to hear, like, how did that, how, how did that pan out and, um, yeah, what happened? 
[00:14:00] Benny: This is one of those things where I'm telling you. I mean, I got lucky, right? So, um, you know, we're very fortunate at Princeton. And, uh, everyone gets funded by that program.
[00:14:10] Benny: Uh, and that's why we have the amazing people that we do that come through that program. And, and also a balance of equity and giving people opportunities. So they had a summer program that they also funded. And then I applied to the world bank United nations in Vietnam because I had a previous background in being in Vietnam.
[00:14:27] Benny: I got denied. So it was April and my wonderful, uh, counselor at the time, her name's angel. Graduate career advisor, Benny, you need to get a job. And so for the summer, um, and it couldn't find. I had no, I had no background in public health, no desire to go to Africa and they rolled around for an interview.
[00:14:50] Benny: As we like you, you want to go? I'm like, okay. And then interviewed the folks in Tanzania and hopped on a plane a month later and then, um, landed. And then, uh, it went time by the time I got there. So, um, it's kind of by chance, but it kind of launched my career with the foundation, Clinton foundation.
[00:15:09] Benny: And then after I came back to grad school, Um, I got, they are opening the office in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, and then they asked me if I wanted to join them there to open that office. So that's how that all began. Um, and then that's led to, um, working in Vietnam for seven years for the foundation. Uh, and then we knew that at some point in time, they said, well, what did you tackle on climate change, the climate change program, and then implement that as well in-country and also around the region.
[00:15:37] Benny: Um, and it was interesting, like you said, Um, you know, working in the community on the ground, but also our approach was we always wanted to work in national governments. And so we were working at the policy level, the planning level national level, and we were working on the ground, um, where we're implementing programs.
[00:15:56] Benny: Like, for example, how do you figure out how to send blood samples to a lab where there's only one lab in the middle of like within, you know, not within 300 miles. In the surrounding provinces, how do you actually get a patient to give blood, to get tested, to understand if they do are living with HIV, then figure out how to treat them afterward.
[00:16:16] Benny: Right? So you're talking about the complete verdict for the county of all those, her policy, the programs had gone on implementation. Um, and yeah, we had a small team we're nimble and we had to do it all. So that was pretty cool. 
[00:16:32] Blake: So incredibly cool. So what was it like, you know, going from the US to Tanzania, what was your, I mean, were you, you were living out there for a while?
[00:16:42] Blake: Yes. 
[00:16:44] Benny: I spent four months in the, out there working for the Clinton Foundation and, you know, look, I think, I think my international career started with living in Egypt twice, so I wasn't too foreign now Sub-Sahara Africa sometimes can be fine, but it's also not the easiest place. Um, but you know, for me, you know, national travel was not uncommon.
[00:17:04] Benny: And I took on every stride and, um, learned the culture, learned the people, learn how to, um, you know, work their work with people there. And then, um, you know, every single new country I live in or is it, um, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's an education. It's a, it's a lesson. Um, and a lesson too. It's a way to grow and open your mind up a little.
[00:17:28] Benny: And, and all of it's educational in terms of understanding perspectives. And then, for example, you know, um, how do I perceive that market at that level? We're building a community and a fan base. You 
[00:17:42] Blake: absolutely. Um, and you know, that's something that I, I think is. Incredibly, uh, empowering and, and you know, what gets me really excited is the idea of being able to somehow make an impact in other people's life.
[00:18:01] Blake: What would you say is kind of your what's your driving force? I mean, when you were dealing with such global issues, what, what, what pushed you typically. 
[00:18:10] Benny: You know, I think it was a passionate set to help improve people's lives. You know, we had a mission, and the interesting thing about working in HIV specifically care treatment is that at the time if you don't get medicine to people they're going to die.
[00:18:25] Benny: Um, and it was a mission, our boss at the time, like if you, if you are not into it to do this, then you don't need to be here. Um, but we all had a hard mission to get as many people on treatment. So the drugs were there. There's another arm of the foundation that worked on supply chain and demand so that it would lower the cost of the drug, right.
[00:18:46] Benny: He went from 10,000 to plus a 600 less than a hundred within a time span of a decade. And that was a good part of the other. It was a good part of the other side of the foundation that allowed us to actually say, okay, now we can figure out how we have the medicine that we got to figure out how to actually get the medicine to people.
[00:19:03] Benny: And of course, it's not as simple as giving people medicine. Diagnosis treatment, lab work monitoring, and then people had to fight stigma. And that's why, you know, a lot of it was anchored in a lot of international development, right? It's all about whether it's education, whether it is health, whether it is, you know, legal or law, it's all about changing human behavior.
[00:19:27] Benny: And that's what public policy really is. How do you actually create a large policy to effectuate change? Um, Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it's interesting in the context of how America is approaching or has experienced COVID the whole of government, the role of public policy. Um, I think, you know, as you can already observe, it's kind of slid down the path of what people forgot, what they got, my industrial them, but also it's contextually different in, in other countries as well.
[00:19:56] Benny: So, um, yeah, I think that's something that, that, uh, you know, I learned and picked up and then, you know, I guess what we can call my friend last night, we had dinner about this, right? They could be in a better name, but intellectually elasticity, figuring out problems in many different levels and operational backup to strategic or policy level, but being able to hover between both of them and everything in between.
[00:20:24] Benny: Um, you know, I've been fortunate enough, to academy engage that way. Um, and it's been interesting. Well, 
[00:20:31] Blake: how do you keep such a cool head when you're dealing with something of that scale? I mean, climate change, uh, HIV, uh, what, yeah. W how do you, how do you eat the elephant one bite at a time, 
[00:20:44] Benny: so to speak?
[00:20:46] Benny: Well, I mean, look there, they enormous issues. No mercy. She can't solve for everyone. So you have to think about what you can possibly do. Yeah, well in Vietnam, if the number, the percentage of people living with HIV is 0.4%. The numbers are not as big as Tanzania that is, I forgot what it was now, even then it was maybe a 5% or 10%.
[00:21:10] Benny: So you're talking about different scales and you just have to approach it that way. And it's also kind of how you solve problems. So I think that makes a difference, right? If there's such a big number, then you have to make sure that infrastructure is there. If it's a small number, then you adjust to seeing what kind of.
[00:21:24] Benny: How do you apply and solve that problem? So, you know, at the end of the day, there are percentage numbers, but there are also absolute members. And when you're dealing with lives, you know, these are real numbers. I mean, we go through this with COVID. Why does it matter? Even though it's a small percentage, why I do hospital beds matter because hospital beds, you're going to have people out there dying.
[00:21:47] Benny: And so you're putting doctors in a position to make decisions on who to choose. That life was based on what she ran. They don't want to be in that position. 
[00:21:57] Blake: Wow. Yeah, that is, uh, just so true. And I feel like that framework can be applied to, to everything, uh, that, that you just listed out this framework for being able.
[00:22:09] Blake: Identify the numbers and be able to, uh, you know, make an uninformed truly informed decision. Um, I just, I guess for me, I'm like from our conversations, you're, you're, uh, you have to, it keeps such a, you have such a cool head and I can just, I don't know. It seems like I can't imagine that. Uh, ever been in a scenario where you're like ripping your hair out.
[00:22:30] Blake: And I feel like you, you, you kind of can't, I dunno, but 
[00:22:33] Benny: that's not true. I rip my hair quite often. You know, you just measure out what you can effectuate and you try to effectuate, even though people think it's impossible, and keep that in mind, Linden, and shift away from these issues. Always not the funniest issue to talk about is let's shift it a little bit where we worked on climate change and we're trying to.
[00:22:56] Benny: Uh, had people reduce their carbon emissions, right. And you can choose anything, right? Electrical cars, electric cars. Well, what we were specifically working on was how do we reduce energy consumption in buildings in Southeast Asia? And I had to figure out how to trigger buildings to reduce their energy consumption because it's a massive emitter of CO2.
[00:23:18] Benny: Um, what is the right business model to approach and help them adopt energy-efficient efficiency measures. So, I mean, yeah, we landed in Jakarta or like, well, does anyone have any of these things? And then you start figuring out how to cobble together. We knew what the business model could be and existed elsewhere in the world just didn't exist in these countries.
[00:23:39] Benny: And then you start piecing the the the parties together to execute a business model that would lend itself to long-term adoption. And it's not easy, I mean, it can take years. And a lot of different leavers, right. But understanding the wide knowledge of, Hey, there's this economic incentive. There's this law, there's this willingness of a building to XYZ there are service providers.
[00:24:01] Benny: You can come in and help these builders do X. Then you started kind of putting things together. But you already say that you can't do something. You're not going to do it right here, too. You have the help to achieve. And that was part of my education at the Clinton foundation. We're going to know, that Clinton had a mandate.
[00:24:19] Benny: We're going to go out there and do things that are different and approach this differently. And we're going to effectuate change. Um, and for a small, nimble organization, I think that, um, we were able to do a lot of that. It would look like we failed in many other regards too. And I think that's, what's really important.
[00:24:33] Benny: The other side of it is you, you should expect failure. Um, you know, the tech sector says, if you don't fail that you haven't succeeded. Uh, but that's, 
[00:24:43] Blake: it's kind of true in a sense, you know? Um, 
[00:24:45] Benny: yeah. So I always say, it's not about, you know, how you fall is how you get up and you gotta keep going. And I think that's, you know, lends itself to a lot of different things like AB testing.
[00:24:56] Benny: What does AB testing? Yeah. Keep testing until you find the right answer or you keep testing because, you know, we have a stadium and we have the Los Angeles football club. We are players, but we. Who liked things, experienced certain things and you never know what they like one day or the next and you get to go figure it out, reiterate until, Hey, they actually like the carne asada nachos.
[00:25:19] Blake: Well, yeah, that's no, I think that's really, really essential being able to, um, hone in on. Yeah, exactly. Just reiterate over, over and over again, as much as humanly possible. Um, let's I, you know, I keep thinking. Because you, I mean, you you've, you've been to so many different countries, by the way. I think you've named like five since we've been chatting.
[00:25:44] Blake: Um, but you know, going to Vietnam, you went out there for seven years. Can you tell me what was yeah? What was the life-like over 
[00:25:51] Benny: there? It was great. Uh, you have Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam, I would say is one of the easier places to live in the world. Um, it has. Infrastructure things that do fun things to do.
[00:26:06] Benny: I, you know, I had a great time now. Um, you know, Southeast Asia is really interesting. I mean, all the times you're growing at the time and what are some of the fastest-growing economies in Asia, which is the fastest-growing region, world, uh, things are changing. And now I remember I would travel and next thing you know, I came back to human city or Saigon and there are three new buildings.
[00:26:27] Benny: And so it was fascinating to witness, um, the hustle and bustle that was occurring. Um, it's uniquely different than my experience in say South Africa and the middle east. Um, you know, that's, that was, that was a really fascinating time to be, uh, in Southeast Asia and learn about, I mean, Southeast Asia is also unique and I sense that every single time.
[00:26:51] Benny: Completely different language, people, culture. So I would travel almost every week to Jakarta, to Bangkok, to Manila, to Singapore, um, and you know, going back to solving, you know, trying to solve problems. We had uniquely different sets of problems in every single different country. I really enjoy it. 
[00:27:11] Blake: You are, you are a man of mystery.
[00:27:13] Blake: You've done a little bit of everything. I know. I love it. Uh, it, it, it gives me so many different questions that, I'm curious about. Um, also, you know, at this time you're working with the Clinton Foundation, this is just something I got to know. Did you, did you get to meet the Clintons then? Or 
[00:27:33] Benny: did you well, so Hillary was secretary of state, so I've never, actually never done.
[00:27:38] Benny: Um, I actually was able to meet, uh, president Clinton, uh, six times in total in person, and very fortunate to, uh, be part of his logistics and hosting team in through three times, which was cool. Um, that's where I learned my head chops because when you, when president Clinton comes to your country, it's like a rock star coming through her head of state coming through with whole fanfare.
[00:28:04] Benny: You got the motorcades, you've got the crowd. You know you got your Renault show, tick toxic, everybody. You find that every minute and moving in and out. And it was very fortunate to spend some time with President Clinton, even for a day or two, each time he visited, but, uh, was very fortunate, is very unique, man, very charismatic, um, an amazing human being, uh, and to see also witnessing as it comes to Vietnam.
[00:28:29] Benny: He was the one who normalized relations, um, Africa. I mean, I remember the first time I, I was carrying his luggage. That was my problem. I was carrying his luggage. I put on the, yeah, we showed up to the hotel. All the hotel workers were in the lobby. They were crying and cheering for the present tense. So that's kinda, it's pretty amazing.
[00:28:54] Blake: That's gotta be powerful to witness 
[00:28:56] Benny: a very powerful, that was very, very cool. So that was a cool part of my job. Um, at the time, but it is pretty tough. You got a plan for a whole week and you know, it's, it's a habit state coming to visit, but it's pretty amazing. And also how it affects the way that we approach our work and are influential in our work.
[00:29:14] Benny: So we don't have to be a big dive. I know CDC, CDC is very active across the world. We're not a big CDC, fully funded with a lot of staff. We have 20 people in Vietnam trying to do all the work that we did. So it was sort of similar across the world of how nimble. And, and how we can really have a large hand-pack with a little, you know, I mean, we were working all the time, um, but it was kind of passionate and passion and mission that drove us to do what we needed to do and what we ultimately try to be successful at.
[00:29:47] Benny: And then that was really achieving those kinds of outcomes we talked about. Um, 
[00:29:52] Blake: That would be a really, uh, electrifying experience. I think in the sense of being able to feed off of each other's energy and all be driven, to one mission. And I have no doubt that you were, you were the one to the right person for the job over there.
[00:30:08] Blake: Uh, any, any piece of advice that, that did you ever get a piece of advice from a bill Clinton by chance? 
[00:30:15] Benny: Not directly. I don't think, but you know, he's always out there, you know, Yeah. One of the biggest things I did is this didn't come from bill Clinton, but you have to be patient. And when you're working with it, I'll give you an example.
[00:30:29] Benny: When you work with national governments, every single one is different. Every single has its own structure and is ever seen. So it wasn't without the frustration that you tried to implement anything, I'll give you an example, you know, Uh, apply for a small business loan. You know, you have to go through a lot of forums, right?
[00:30:48] Benny: I think they've actually fixed that out, but you know, um, you have to have a lot of patients. It took us a long time to implement some of the work that we did. We knew what the answers were and that the world health organization had guidelines on what countries should adopt. But every country feels like they needed to adjust it for their own, you know, customize it for themselves.
[00:31:08] Benny: Right. So we knew what the answer was and we could have done it the next day. That doesn't work that way. You have to vet it. Local actors have to see it. You have to make sure that the people on the ground are right. Then it goes through its system. It could take a year, but when it hits, um, you know, it's very rewarding, you know, and every country is different.
[00:31:31] Benny: Vietnam takes a long time to do something, but when they decide to do something on a nationwide basis, it literally happens next. Other places. Great. We'll issue a plan. And then the data takes a little while, to work itself out. And, um, and that's something in America is a little bit different. I think that, um, the policy takes time, but things do or act or operationalize pretty quickly.
[00:31:54] Benny: We have to have that kind of patience. These different countries operate differently than we do. So all educational process. And I'll be, I'll tell you what, when I came back to America, I had to get used to American work professional culture and that's different than itself. So I'm always learning, always adjusting, um, pulling my hair out.
[00:32:15] Benny: It's not, you have to figure out how to be cool and collected, but yeah, of course, I'm stressing. And why this, why that, um, but if you try to stress more than. You're not changing anything, my stressing more, um, that's something that's learned, you know, recently a past couple of years. Yeah. You stress make enough stories to stress yourself out.
[00:32:39] Benny: It's going to focus on how to solve the situation. 
[00:32:42] Blake: Absolutely. That's a really great perspective to have. I mean, you take, it takes time to distress, you know, it takes time away from getting, uh, getting the task at hand done and. Ultimately, if it's, if it's, uh, going to be something that eats away at your productivity hours, I think it's helpful to remember just, uh, that yeah.
[00:33:06] Blake: You know, all you can do is try your absolute best to keep pushing forward. Uh, 
[00:33:10] Benny: and, and it's an important mindset. I'll give you an example. I was stressed out about what my boss thought about me, and I thought I was going to lose my job, but there was no point in time ever that he thought that he even had in his head that I would do my job.
[00:33:23] Benny: And what happens is the negative outcome of this. You thinking about maybe him thinking that you may lose your job is negatively passion productivity and you're impacting us, you know, and then it's a nasty cycle that way, you know, 
[00:33:38] Blake: Um, absolutely. That is no that's so true. I mean, I I've been in those scenarios too, where I've, uh, you know, I've been thinking about something that's, that's stressing me out or worrying about a client or, uh, you know, being afraid that somebody's upset.
[00:33:55] Blake: I think, you know, there's, there are all kinds of scenarios that pop up. So, um, yeah. And it might just be outside of reality. Um, no, I think that that's something that everybody, everybody should, uh, should always try to remind themselves at least if they want to hopefully live a little more, uh, a little more calmly.
[00:34:16] Blake: So how did, how on earth did you, did you get to start a, uh, a basketball team in Vietnam? That's pretty 
[00:34:23] Benny: cool. Um, yeah, it was interesting, you know, one of my good friends. Uh, in Vietnam, his name's Henry, when he, one day he was a guy to book up, brought his friends together as a gay, I want to start a basketball team and to bring it.
[00:34:38] Benny: And we'll be part of the Southeast Asian Lee and say, are you guys, can you help me out? And then, uh, next thing you know, you're like, Hey, we got the basketball team. And then we cobbled together, you know, then separately there was a coach and a team and then a. You know, help with the branding help with the execution of the games.
[00:34:57] Benny: It was very cool because you know, Vietnamese didn't know much about basketball. We actually had to stop after the witnessing. The first game that we had, uh, fans are cheering for both teams. And it just caught time. So I scored something. It would be 
[00:35:12] Blake: it's exciting all around, you know, 
[00:35:14] Benny: that's th use of soccer, but I, you know, when you said basketball, I'm like, Hey, why not talk to celebrate?
[00:35:20] Benny: Everybody's like Tina's ability to score. And then we had to whip out the microphone before the next game. I had a training of 2000 people in the arena and say, Hey, this is how things work. And then, you know, we grew over time and. They learn how to cheer and become fans of a basketball I professional basketball team.
[00:35:41] Blake: Wow. Wow. And what was, uh, yeah. What, was your role in that? It sounds like, you know, I'm always hearing elements of, of community and, and, and being able to figure out like what people want and, and bring people together. Uh, yeah. What was your, yeah? What was, how did, what was your 
[00:35:59] Benny: role in all of that?
[00:36:00] Benny: Yeah, no, we were all hands-on. Deck help with some of the marketing help with, um, bringing, bringing the crowd together and trying to work on the game day experience. And, you know, that was kind of like a side job. I was actually a color commentator for ESPN, Southeast Asia for our games. It's pretty fun. Um, and yeah, working with the crowd and then really whipping them up and trying to build, uh, a fan of her basketball and Vietnam.
[00:36:27] Benny: Um, but that community stuff, I mean, in terms of the approach really didn't hit until we got, I got to LFC. Um, and you know, if you do witness the way that we approach. Um, and how we approach, you know, LFC our community as in fans and our supporters and everything. Uh, we knew that was critical for our success to build a fan base and a culture around our brand, really we're building culture and brand, and we wanted to build something that represented the city of LA to do so.
[00:36:58] Benny: And so when I'm merging, um, how we approach to build the brand and the, that, and the fan base was to be inclusive and to enroll. And, you know, not coming from a sports background and kind of learning about design thinking and other, these, these other methodologies. We use design thinking to enroll people into designing their own building, which is the statement of physical building or space.
[00:37:24] Benny: And also 
[00:37:25] Blake: the stadium is fully informed by the community. Is informed 
[00:37:30] Benny: by the community. There are elements of it that was formed by the community. Yes. I mean, we did this in coordination with our, with, um, our, um, architect, but we had to lay down the foundation and everything, right. We should this many seats and this many premium areas that was informed by our economic feasibility.
[00:37:51] Benny: At the end of the day, like, how do you want to experience it? What is your mobile experience? Like, how do you want to engage? What kind of food do you want? Um, supporters in soccer culture, very specific, right? They, they own a section. They're the hardest hardcore, um, you know, uh, fans of the club and they're really important to us.
[00:38:10] Benny: Right. And so we have a dedicated space for them. Uh, we're at 12 to 30, 2 52 standing only we invested to make it standing only predators. And they have their own area Concourse where they co-design. We worked with them to co-design the space. It's not, oh my gosh. I, and see it. I mean, this is driven completely by the fans, um, in partnership with our creative director, um, you know, we had sponsors in there, but yeah, you'll see it.
[00:38:39] Benny: This is their fingerprints all over and there are a lot of cool, informative things that we gained from our fans to like, for example, The supporter section was supposed to be standing only. And we were formed by mothers. Like, listen, my husband is crazy and fun and he wants to stay in at the standing section.
[00:38:57] Benny: I got two kids, so we need seats. So we have more seats in the wings. They're still part of the supporter section, but they have seats versus standing on me. So that was very important for us enrolling people. And we tried to do that on a regular basis with our fans, get feedback on food, get feedback on experience, um, and the way you do it as design thinking is not a focus.
[00:39:18] Benny: It's not a one-to-one extraction. Um, let them share ideas with each other and ideate. Uh, we had a fun session, one time with fans after first year, whereas like drawing, drawing your own fan journey and tell me which step of the way and how we can improve the process. And that's, you know, that's kind of like some of the few things that we do here at our club.
[00:39:40] Benny: Um, and it's community driven. Have you ever come out here? There's something called instead of tailgating, it's called a family picnic with a supporter set. They bring their beer. They'd be their food. We feed our security guards before we go to the game or, you know, it's all one big happy family and we're all commonality cheering for our team.
[00:39:59] Benny: Um, and, and that's how we approach. You know, our club and, and how it represents the city of Los Angeles and how the sport may be, you know, use as a platform to do that. So it's been great. Um, and it's been really, really fun. Of course there's soccer. Um, but also, you know, our players are involved in the community and driving that aspect of our club in general.
[00:40:21] Benny: Oh, really? 
[00:40:23] Blake: That's incredible. Um, you know, I just gotta say, I, it sounds like you really built some serious trust with your fans. Uh, by going through this process, you got to actually know your fans and your supporters, I should say. Uh, and they got to know you. I know it can be kind of daunting when you see that people are just building another giant infrastructure in your city, right?
[00:40:50] Blake: Yeah. I, I feel like it's, it's essential, uh, to, to be able to establish some sort of rapport or, um, really get people on your side and especially so for sports. And it just seems like you have a gift for being able to start a movement. What have you learned about starting 
[00:41:09] Benny: movements? Yeah, I learned a lot from my coworker.
[00:41:13] Benny: His name is Richard Roscoe had branding and. Um, he was all he's. So he's all about the movement. Um, I learned about social movements and developing countries. He's like, he's like people movement and that's kind of what we were trying to build as a people moving in the city of Los Angeles, there was an existing team, the galaxy, uh, we, we had, we knew that it was going to, wasn't going to be easy.
[00:41:36] Benny: Um, and we had to kind of map out our thesis of what we could do to be successful. I was lucky enough to learn along the way and also. Be successful at it. I mean, we've got a long way to go, but I think we've done a pretty decent job. You know, at the same time we were coming to LA, we had to build a stadium, a team, and a brand all at the same time and opened the stadium within three years and four months.
[00:42:00] Benny: Right. Um, meanwhile, there are two NFL teams moving to Los Angeles. So people are like, you guys are crazy. Whenever it can be done, you never get a stadium built. Um, but you know, we, we were able to. 
[00:42:13] Blake: Wow. That's uh, that's, that's gotta be, I mean, that's, I feel like, uh, this is so silly, but I feel like, yeah, if you don't have haters, you're not doing it right.
[00:42:24] Blake: No, I'm just kidding. But you got to have a few, you got, you're going to get a couple of people whenever you start doing something big like that. So, um, no, it's, it's, it's just funny how that, how that works out. So going from. Just to kind of put the pieces together, going from Vietnam back to us. Tell me about it, cause I mean, It seemed like you were just absolutely killing it in Vietnam.
[00:42:51] Blake: You're going like all over Southeast Asia. You're super plugged in. I guess the reason I'm calling it out is that there are a lot of people that. I would imagine they'd be like, yeah, man, I guess I'm gonna, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life. This is like a pretty sweet setup. Us salary in Vietnam too.
[00:43:12] Blake: Uh, you're probably like, that's a good setup as well. I would, uh, I, I would imagine. So what pushed you to take it to that next stage of life? 
[00:43:22] Benny: Yeah. Then, you know, at the time it's 35, I met at the point of my career. I wasn't ready to make a decision whether or not I would stay in Vietnam, for the rest of my life, career, or not.
[00:43:35] Benny: And, you know, at some level I learned that there might be a perception that you're in Vietnam for too long and market-specific skill-specific. And it's hard to laterally move back to the US especially when I've worked in the sector, the nonprofit or development sector. Um, now I knew that I didn't want to necessarily continue the international development sector or at least come back to it, but I wanted to do something.
[00:43:58] Benny: So what else they're making a pivot to business, uh, and then I want to need to make a pivot and market. So, um, and, and so in business, right, you go to business school because you are either changing careers or you go for networking or you want to build additional skills, but the big thing is you can pivot. So in my case, I didn't want to go back to business school.
[00:44:17] Benny: Um, and then I, you know, want to go back to private. And interestingly enough, when I was moved back to us, that was more resolving than even my private experience with a massive consulting. So, um, that's one thing that I wanted to prove myself to the private sector in us, because between after being had done in the US then you can go back into the world and go anywhere else.
[00:44:37] Benny: Right? Sure. So I think that was kind of like strategic on my part to switch markets and to switch sectors. Um, and then maintaining flexibility is what I was wanting to choose so that I can get the experience and then decide. Okay. Do I want to go back or do you want to stay or the other part of the world and how do I shift across sectors, which is maybe a little bit harder depending, but if you have maybe the way that we're trained as math consultants is, you know, you're a generalist as opposed to, um, sector-specific.
[00:45:11] Benny: But again, you know, that's the other thing I love about working in sports and working for a sports team and a stadium is that you're constantly trying. It's very nuanced. It's not hard, it's not a hard business. Perse, I guess maybe that's a wrong word to use. It's a very nuanced business. You're dealing with human behavior all the time.
[00:45:31] Benny: Are they going to buy our tickets? Are they going to buy our food? Uh, how are they going to react to the team losing? Are they going to come when it rains? Is are they going to come with a top? And it's always changing and you've got to constantly adjust. And that's what I find fascinating. Right? Even parking may be the most mundane thing ever.
[00:45:46] Benny: Right. Got to make sure that's a good experience as a wide people driving up this road versus the other room. Uh, and so that. Figuring out and solving problems and all human behavior base really goes back to what I was doing previously anyway. Right. Which is, you know, public policy and trying to change your behaviors for the better, um, or changing policy and infrastructure programs to change human behavior for a better outcome for them, for society in general.
[00:46:13] Benny: And there are lots, right? So, you know, it's kind of all similar, have a similar law. Uh, very interesting. I'm not trying to, when you're trying to sell widget a or would you be, you're still trying to figure out, you know, the market as well. Right? So kind of all of them apply. It's just that sports you're selling.
[00:46:31] Benny: You're selling the emotional product at some point or a media product that's on the field and that's what you get to deal with. 
[00:46:38] Blake: That's you know, and, and yeah, I it's, I liked what you said about everything kind of adding up to, to this moment now, because that's something as we've been talking, I was like, well, You know, you've been growing your worldview.
[00:46:52] Blake: There's been this focus on community. There's been this focus on people. There's been this focus on leadership. There's been these big projects that, you know, it's like, all right, you have to execute. Um, and it seems like all of this would. You know, add up to making a lot of sense for creating what you're creating over at LFC.
[00:47:10] Blake: Once you actually got to, uh, I guess something I would love to learn about is the, uh, the portion of time where you were, you know, in America, figuring out what you wanted to do next. What's the story behind finding the stadium over there and finding, finding that next, that next, uh, mission 
[00:47:30] Benny: in terms of.
[00:47:33] Blake: How did you, uh, how did, yeah, how did it, how did it happen where you hunting for it and you just saw an opening or did somebody approach you 
[00:47:41] Benny: or in terms of the job or in terms of the actual stadium location? 
[00:47:47] Blake: Uh, I was referring to the job. Yeah. 
[00:47:50] Benny: So the same. So again, being lucky, the same person who brought me into the Saigon.
[00:47:58] Benny: Was the founding owner of LFC. So he was like, listen, I know you're a San Francisco look for a tech job and I know you're still looking, but you know, I might get this team, uh, with a really great set of owners and trying to build, um, a soccer team in a stadium and in Los Angeles, uh, at which point I've never been to Southern California.
[00:48:21] Benny: And so, um, at some point like, Why not. And so I went, the first thing I did was when I landed on my, I went for an interview that was first time in LA month later I flew down and I literally landed, went straight to a meeting and started helping with negotiating the lease for the stadium. It was a process that took about a year.
[00:48:43] Benny: Um, so this is where it is, again, my work with national governments and trying to execute and look, I've never built anything in my life. So I got to go figure it out. And not many people have built stadiums or entitlements for land. So with a great team and a great founders, and you know, all the staff that we had, we had a small team of six to 10 at the time, really our minds and our hearts and their splits went into.
[00:49:07] Benny: To look for the site, start designing it and putting together a cadre of program managers, project managers, the, the, um, uh, the architects, um, you know, the construction companies to really start planning, designing a stadium. It was pretty fascinating, you know, to actually build out a process that was a learning process for me, um, to, to understand, Hey, I'll say, what do you want to say to him?
[00:49:31] Benny: Like, well, okay then. Putting together, everything that we wanted in terms of ideas and elements, you know, we wanted the crowd to be tight and it was driven by supporters. We want to, at this size, we want it to be modern, but then celebrate the game of soccer. So that kind of started my journey on terms of designing a stadium and then that's kind of how it 
[00:49:56] Blake: all started.
[00:49:58] Blake: Wow. So what is this taught you about? Executing, uh, executing, uh, a goal. Like how do you start? You know, whatever. I mean, I would imagine that you're like, I don't know. It might be a, I don't know if you're a project guy or anything like that, where you have personal projects at home, but I can imagine you'd be in the type of person to be like, yeah, you know what?
[00:50:20] Blake: I'm going to build out my own car and then working 
[00:50:23] your 
[00:50:23] Benny: way it's going to happen. So, so there are, well, first we had a great team. I mean, when we worked in, in time, a really good team of legal. And pulled up consultants and, you know, and enrolling people to be part of the project, right. The city, the people, the folks in the local neighborhood, um, and make it like having that level of engagement.
[00:50:44] Benny: But they're also always people that, you know, have done it before. So I was to ask people, I don't mind ever saying, I don't know. And then I don't mind asking people, like, how did you approach us? So we have partner organizations such as the Dodgers and the second one of Kings and the warriors, and, you know, Atlanta at the time was building the Mercedes Benz stadium and Atlanta United was launched.
[00:51:09] Benny: And, you know, and we talked to the Falcons and we talked, you know, talking to everybody as much as possible to understand where the gaps are with the best practices. And try to enroll it and incorporate it into the building as much as possible. Um, don't be afraid to ask people willing to help. Um, and I think, you know, all boats rise, right?
[00:51:28] Benny: So we learned a lot, you know, when it came to the fan stack or the technology stack, or how do we do entry into, um, the stadium and at some level too, we've kind of reached beyond, you know, the sports world, understand what the business world is doing. What is the perception of memberships and. And how do millennials change the perception of mobile usage?
[00:51:51] Benny: For example, you know, we went and hard, pretty early, you know, but our thesis was mobile is going to be everything. So I'm sure that ahead of technology, Christian, loud, myself looking at this and we've lived abroad. Everything is mobile based, but in the, in the U S you know, it took a long time CDMA versus SIM card.
[00:52:13] Benny: And voice versus texting and texting king, all that was done around the world. Right. So, so, but we wanted to make sure that we, we were trying to plan as much for the future. There's no such thing as future proof, but you want to try to plan for the future and have flexibility, especially when you're building an infrastructure project.
[00:52:33] Benny: Um, and the ability of that flexibility have just as much as you can, all this is learning. Gotta learn as much as you can and it's okay that you don't miss. You just got to ask and then just incorporate, learn, and then, and then find all the best practices then finding the way and the mechanism to put in a package for you to implement.
[00:52:53] Blake: Yeah, absolutely. Benny. I am taking notes right now. I, uh, I, you know, this is, this has been some invaluable information. Uh, there's a ton of people out there that are wanting to take some sort of a, you know, a path that's a little less than maybe the traditional path. Uh, and I think you're a really good example of somebody that, you know, Found this really, really interesting journey and made a massive impact from, from everything that I've gathered.
[00:53:27] Blake: So, you know, in closing, what I usually like to touch on is, you know, now that you've gotten to where you're are, uh, what kind of impact do you wanna make on the world? 
[00:53:40] Benny: Well, that's a loaded question,
[00:53:45] Benny: you know? I don't know. And I think that's okay to say, I don't know, by the end of the day, um, I think there's levels different. I do want to impact people and whether that's in mass, um, that's something that I'm used to and rather do. And maybe in the future, I go back to that sector or in a sense of what we're doing here, we're impacting lots of folks, um, in our community.
[00:54:10] Benny: Um, you know, some people where they want to impact certainly. But, you know, I've always got that mindset of trying to figure out how to really impact in a positive way society. So, um, you know, also from the, you know, there's a lot of problems we have in our world, whether it be in America, whether it be in a different country and, you know, today we're witnessing some pretty bad stuff that we didn't think was going to happen and the century when it's happening, um, and the world will keep changing.
[00:54:39] Benny: But as long as. Authentic and have integrity in what we do. I think we're all better for it. Uh, as, as, as a community and a society. Um, those don't always work that way, but, uh, having that positive attitude and looking at change, and I love the fact that, um, the world, at least in America, and I think it was falling.
[00:55:00] Benny: Look, you see a lot of companies that are cause based companies that are using causes and be effective and authentic at addressing causes as part of their business. And I love that. I love the fact that we are mobilizing society. Do you send, I hope that trend continues and sticks and I think we'll be all the better for 
[00:55:18] Blake: absolutely.
[00:55:19] Blake: I, uh, I love that as well. Benny, where can everybody find you and, and keep up with you? Is there anything that you want to shout out? Anything you want to plug anything at all, uh, 
[00:55:32] Benny: you know, follow LFC. Um, and, uh, and I try to post as much as I can at Lac state. Benny is my handle, but, uh, check us out as a team, uh, check out as how that, how we approached our business, I think is pretty unique and interesting.
[00:55:48] Benny: Um, you know, if I'm on LinkedIn, uh, and, uh, you're still trying to, I, at this point in my career, I'm still trying to wonder what this kid wants to do when he grows up. So, um, more to come. 
[00:56:00] Blake: I love that so much. Well, Hey, Benny, it has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for being on the G.E.M series. Uh, everybody take notes.
[00:56:10] Blake: Uh, Benny's doing some amazing stuff. Uh, I, you know, I hope you have a great day and, uh, hope everybody, uh, yeah. Uh, you know, send some sense of good questions and goes to a heck of a lot of LFC matches. So 
[00:56:23] Benny: thank you for having me really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to, uh, 
[00:56:29] Blake: Thanks penny.
[00:56:34] Blake: Thank you for joining us on this episode of the G.E.M series, the podcast for anybody dedicated to investing in themselves. If you'd like to see the resources mentioned in this episode, learn more about what we're up to at rocket level or come over and join our team. Just click on the links below until next time.
[00:56:50] Blake: This is Blake Chapman, and remember to be awesome and do awesome things.