By Md Arif Raihan Maahi, Chief Impact Officer, Devtale Partners
Ask who is designing Viet Nam’s wind farms, running its solar plants, or setting the policies that will govern its energy transition, and the answer is still mostly men, though a growing number of women are pushing that door open. Viet Nam ranks 72nd out of 146 countries on the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Global Gender Gap Index, and women hold only 22% of jobs in the country’s fast-growing green industries, still concentrated in administrative roles rather than the technical and leadership positions that will define how the transition unfolds. We created the HerPOWER Leadership Cohort in Viet Nam to change that.
Too often, I have walked into rooms where the future of the energy transition was being discussed almost entirely by men. I have seen how the absence of diverse voices narrows the conversation and slows the progress we all want. That experience convinced me that the only way to balance those rooms is to bring more women into the sector itself.
The pattern extends well beyond Viet Nam. Globally, women make up only around 32% of the renewable energy workforce, concentrated in administrative functions rather than the engineering, policy, and leadership roles that shape the sector’s direction. Viet Nam, meanwhile, has committed to one of the region’s most ambitious energy transitions: under its revised Power Development Plan VIII (PDP8), renewable sources excluding hydropower are set to supply 28–36% of the country’s power mix by 2030, rising to as much as 74–75% by 2050. Our premise is straightforward: that transition will only be as fast, and as fair, as the number of women who help lead it.
HerPOWER Viet Nam is the first Southeast Asian chapter of a leadership model that began in Bangladesh in 2022 as Shoktikonna (Power Woman), which we co-created at Devtale Partners with the World Bank. HerPOWER Viet Nam combines self-paced online coursework on the World Bank’s official learning platform and through sponsored Coursera courses from the University of Illinois, with live sessions delivered by more than 10 international experts. The experts are drawn from institutions including the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), the Asian Development Bank, the European Commission, and the European Investment Bank, as well as universities such as the University of Utah and the Florence School of Regulation.
Building on that model, we launched the first cohort in 2025 as a joint initiative of Devtale Partners, the World Bank, GIZ Viet Nam, Women in Energy Viet Nam (WEVN), and the WePOWER network. When the cohort graduated, leaders from every partner came together in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City to celebrate and to reaffirm a shared commitment to a more inclusive green transition.
Nguyen Xuan Dieu Linh, a Sustainability and ESG Specialist at KLINOVA, completed the program and was recognized as a leader at the graduation ceremony in June 2026. Her colleague Nguyen Thi Minh Hue took part in the same cohort cycle from the other side of the room, as a guest speaker on ESG for future energy leaders. To me, it is a small sign of how quickly the program is drawing energy-sector professionals in as mentors as well as participants.
Not every graduate arrives already set on a career in energy. For some, the program is what turns an early interest into a firm decision. Nguyễn Trần Ngọc Như, an undergraduate studying International Relations at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, first found her way into the sector through an internship with GIZ’s Energy Support Programme. She spent six months working on the Project Development Programme that changed how she saw her own prospects in the field. “I realized that renewable energy is a field with great potential and meaningful impact,” she said. “I also saw that someone with a non-technical background like mine in International Relations can still contribute to the energy transition.”
