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LESSONS FROM THE RED LANTERN

What 25 years of Flavour, Hospitality and Heart taught me about Customer Loyalty, Team Devotion, Enduring Legacy and Evolving Leadership. 

In her powerful new keynote, Pauline Nguyen draws on the real, raw journey of Red Lantern: from building the most awarded Vietnamese restaurant in the world, to making the courageous decision to close at the very peak.

Having survived a multitude of economic downturns and industry challenges over a quarter of a century in what is a highly fickle, saturated and competitive industry, Pauline has direct experience of what it takes to still come out on top.

Through candid stories of her team, her challenges, and her own transformation, Pauline explores what it means to lead with calm courage, to face uncomfortable transitions, and to harness both success and endings as fuel for personal and professional evolution. This is a keynote for anyone navigating change, striving for excellence, or seeking the wisdom to know when to begin anew.

This mesmerising, insightful and thought-provoking keynote draws on the latest discoveries in neuroscience and behavioural psychology to explore these core themes:

Human First, always Human First

Humans Want Humans. Customers want business owners who genuinely care about them. Employees stay loyal to employers who put their humanity first.
Hear how Red Lantern has consistently maintained a staff turnover rate of 11% — which is unheard of in most industries let alone hospitality.
Today’s leaders must walk the walk to navigate different scenarios, yet people still look for the same core qualities, integrity, consistency, courage and care.
Technology, data, A.I and media have transformed the context leaders operate in, but the fundamentals of leadership must remain the same. In a world of machines, the evolved leader must show up as a Human First, always Human First.

Upgrade Your Operating System

To sustain these disciplines and weather the storms, leaders and their teams must continually upgrade their own personal operating system – mindset, heartset, healthset and soulset. All areas must be encompassed, no area can be ignored.
This means becoming more self aware, build more emotional capacity, be open to feedback, and Self Leadership – the willingness to change how you think and how you behave as circumstances continue to evolve.

Deep Performance

Not ‘High Performance’ but ‘Deep Performance.’
Deep Performance is about consistently taking ownership of doing the basics well under pressure with pride, in a system where many interdependent roles must execute together as one.
This is the Power of Many – Everyone understands that their role (however modest it may seem) genuinely moves the needle. Leadership is shared: together as one with ownership and with pride. 

Radical Transparency Strengthens All Relationships

Deep performing teams combine high standards with high psychological safety. Ambition is non-negotiable and so is the expectation that people will speak candidly about problems, errors and uncertainties. This means openly sharing problems, collaborating across boundaries, and accepting decisions that deliberately builds and protect a team culture that is always for the greater good.

Continually Correct Course

Team meetings are built around the key strategic actions agreed in discipline…
What’s working? What’s not? What needs to change? This requires candour, challenge and psychological safety – an environment where leaders and team can surface problems, confront reality and make hard choices without fear.

Grow Leaders Everywhere

The people closest to the action already hold most of the answers. The inside of the machine is shaped by 4 elements – Commitment, Belonging, Freedom and Self Leadership.
Leadership is a behaviour not a job title. This discipline recognises that leadership cannot be confined to the org chart. Leaders at every level are people who can spot a problem or an opportunity, see that something isn’t as good as it could be and then mobilize others to improve it.

Let Pauline inspire your audience to expand their capacity, achieve deep performance under pressure, and write their own chapters with courage and purpose – cultivating a legacy that outlives the business itself.

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THE WARCHEST OF A MODERN LEADER

How to be a smarter, faster, happier and more grounded human in the era of total disruption

For the life of a modern entrepreneur, business leader or corporate executive, the highly competitive business environment is a battlefield. And as a resolute, strong and prepared as you are as a warrior, without an adequate war chest, you don‘t stand a chance against the your competition.

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.

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EVOLVING LEADERSHIP

Leading the New Paradigm of Work

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-Leadership and Self-Mastery. 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.

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 a multitude of economic downturns, but to thrive. As Pauline says, “Business development cannot happen unless business disruption happens first”.

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”.

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THE WAY OF THE SPIRITUAL ENTREPRENEUR

The 7 Secrets to Becoming Fearless, Stress Free and Unshakable in Business and in Life

It’s time to disrupt the disruption. For the life of the modern conscious leader, the highly competitive business environment can be a battlefield. Having worked with, coached and facilitated entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses, corporate executives and leaders from all walks of life, Pauline has seen many incredibly gifted, driven, passionate and purposeful leaders fraying at the edges diseased and dis-eased. Sure, they may boast that they have a lot of money in the bank but they are spiritually bankrupt and are struggling to find joy, purpose, satisfaction, happiness and harmony.

At an organizational level they are burned out, stressed out and frazzled. In this riveting keynote, Pauline speaks to The Way of Spiritual Entrepreneur and why ‘The Way’ ultimately presents a radically new and meaningful paradigm that enhances and enriches everyone who embraces it. Especially if the goal is to build and sustain vibrant, creative and profitable organizations with engaged, energised, inspired and productive teams over the long run.