‘I’ve always aimed big’: Vietnamese tycoon behind £155m Oxford donation

Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao has gone from importing fax machines as a student in Moscow to name-changing billionaire

Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao began her business career as a sideline importing fax machines and latex rubber into the then Soviet Union while studying economic management at D Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology in Moscow. Before she had turned 21 - or graduated - she had made her first million.

Phuong Thao, who is popularly known as Madam Thao, is now Vietnam's first and only female billionaire with an estimated $2.7bn (2bn) fortune made from VietJet, the airline she founded and runs, alongside a vast property empire that stretches from skyscrapers in Ho Chi Minh City to five star beach resorts across the country as well as offshore oil and gas exploration and fossil fuel financing.