Bui Thi Thanh Tu is an innovation ecosystem builder currently serving as Community Manager at the Business Startup Support Centre (BSSC) and InnoEx. In this role, she builds partnerships across investors, corporations, support organizations, universities, and the media to expand entrepreneurs’ access to capital, mentorship, and markets. Over the past seven years, she has directly supported more than 500 startups and SMEs and engaged over 10,000 entrepreneurs and youth founders, strengthening Vietnam’s innovation community and the pathways that help new ideas become real solutions.

A central milestone in Tu’s work has been helping scale InnoEx into a leading regional gateway for inclusive innovation. The event draws around 30,000 attendees from 60 countries and territories, including thousands of senior executives, and brings together startups, investors, policymakers, and development partners for shared problem solving across climate, sustainability, health, and inclusive growth. Tu brings a distinctive perspective shaped by 10 years in corporate marketing, which sharpened her commitment to building equitable ecosystems where founders from outside major urban hubs and underrepresented backgrounds can access the networks, guidance, and opportunities needed to scale. She views health equity not only as a medical challenge, but also as an innovation challenge shaped by income security, environmental conditions, and access to knowledge and resources.

Beyond ecosystem and program design, Tu mentors entrepreneurs through SME Mentoring 1on1 and teaches entrepreneurship at FPT University, embedding an “entrepreneurship for equity” mindset in the next generation. She also serves on the secretariat of IATSS Forum Vietnam, supporting leadership development and regional collaboration through coordination with partners in Japan and across Vietnam. In the next phase of her work, Tu aims to mobilize more capital and cross sector partnerships toward health focused and climate resilient ventures, ensuring inclusive innovation translates into measurable community impact.