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The next K-pop? POPS founder Esther Nguyen hopes TikTok can make Southeast Asian music a global phenomenon
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Esther Nguyen has what may be a stereotypical story for a Vietnamese-American entrepreneur working in Vietnam.
Key facts
- Esther Nguyen will be speaking at the Southeast Asia 500 Summit on Nov. 3 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
- Yeah1, Vietnam’s first listed media company, reported a 60% revenue jump in 2025 thanks to formats like Call Me by Fire, a singing competition that drew crowds as large as 50,000 people a night
- Following its foundational years in Vietnam, POPS expanded to other markets in Southeast Asia, entering Thailand in 2016 and Indonesia in 2020
- The Fortune Southeast Asia 500 Summit will convene executives from the Fortune Southeast Asia 500, policymakers, and investors to examine the forces reshaping one of the world's most important growth
Summary
“I knew I wanted to do something in Southeast Asia, and specifically Vietnam,” Nguyen tells Fortune. In 2007, she packed her bags and moved to Ho Chi Minh City with a dream of creating the “ Spotify of Vietnam,” before there was even a digital ecosystem to work in. The local music industry, she recalls, was a mess. Nguyen responded by starting POPS Worldwide, an entertainment company which produces, licenses, distributes, and monetizes digital content across platforms like YouTube and Facebook.