The Organizing & Hosting team

Trang Nguyen studied Software Engineering and Sustainability Leadership and has worked in diverse sectors including technology, marketing, education, human rights and organisational development.

She has 5 years of experience working with factory owners, managers and workers in Vietnam, co-creating space for collaboration and dialogue in their work processes, where people can feel safe to trust, prototype and make meaningful decisions on behalf of the whole. She also works with other international organisations and corporations in Vietnam who want to incorporate co-creation and self-organisation in their structures. Her focus has been on how to nurture community wellbeing and self-organization in workplaces.

Most recently, Trang started building a living community on a mountain land in Vietnam with her friends, creating the systemic changes she wishes to see, and inviting new learnings that allow her to serve at the intersection of corporates and community.

Nam has always been drawn to the power of conversations that open up possibilities for change. As a conversational space holder, Nam believes in well-hosted conversation as an intersection of personal growth, deep collaboration and satisfying human relationships.

Nam has been an active practitioner and community advocate for The Circle Way process alongside his brothers and sisters in Tròn Lành Network. Nam is also a dialogue facilitator and a certified master practitioner at The Centre for Holding Space.

Steve has been a practitioner in the Art of Hosting field for the past 20 years and has had the privilege of being part of trainings and capacity building around the world. Currently, Steve lives on a mountain top in the Pacific Northwest where he is stewarding a forest ecosystem. He has a deep connection with Vietnam, having been involved with the hosting field there since 2016 and he is excited by the opportunity to return to the country he loves and to be part of this training.

Narayan Silva grew up in Brazil and has spent much of his life living between cultures and continents. He holds an MSc in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability and is guided by a passion for supporting people and organizations to realize their potential for creating positive impact.

He experienced his first Art of Hosting training in Sweden in 2013, an experience that had a profound influence on his work and life. Since then, he has dedicated himself to this field, hosting collaborative processes for organizations and groups across sectors, cultures, and contexts around the world. His journey has also taken him through important experiences of learning and community, including living in Vietnam and co-leading Knowmads Hanoi.

Narayan has been based in China since 2018, working mostly with multinationals with ambitious sustainability goals, Sino-European partnerships, and public institutions. He is also a father who is increasingly interested in how the quality of our conversations and relationships shapes not only the way we work together, but also the kind of families and futures we create.

Joanna, a UK born Anglo Indian, has worked in sustainable development collaboration for the last 22 years, through international bodies including Business in the Community, The Partnership Brokers Association and The Partnering Initiative. Her global work with governments, EU, INGOs and business ignited a passionate quest for practices that support communities to participate in sustainable development partnerships so they can shape their own destinies. This led her to discover the Art of Hosting practice which she feels is critical for cutting through the power dynamics that obstruct constructive dialogue and cocreation of effective programmes and projects.

Joanna has been applying the Art of Hosting approach in communities, colleges, businesses and at a systemic level in her state of Goa, India, for the last 10 years. Joanna is committed to creating spaces that invite a deeper Humanity and enable community driven green pathways to progress.

In his journey of practice so far, Linh’s proudest achievement has been helping organize and host the first training conducted in Vietnamese in Vietnam—and successfully inviting his mother to join. This practice is deeply woven into both his work and his life, and he continues to enjoy the abundance that comes from living this way.

Linh is a storyteller and a father of two beautiful girls. He is also the co-founder of Percolab Vietnam, an organization dedicated to spreading participatory practices across the country.

I like to introduce myself as Trung Slim, but each member of my family has their own way of calling me. My parents call me Trung Còi, my wife calls me Sz (pronounced “Xờ”), and my kids call me Ba Bọ (Daddy Ladybug). The biggest project I am currently living and working on is my family.

The questions of how to live together as a family, across both sides of it, across generations, and with different beliefs and values, first began to emerge for me during the Art of Hosting training in 2024.

This year, my father was the first person I invited to join the training. In the invitation email I sent him, I wrote: “I hope our family can create an intergenerational flow through which the good values of our ancestors, grandparents, and parents can be passed down. And I hope the generations that come after us will not only carry those values forward, but also be able to nurture and regenerate the core values of our family, while healing the wounds and tending to the pain and deprivation that their ancestors had to carry. Instead of growing further apart and widening what people often call the ‘generation gap’, I believe our family can understand one another more deeply, have more compassion for one another, and become more connected.”

Hang grew up with a belief nurtured in her family that differences, tensions, and even the difficult things between people can be brought into conversation and worked through together. That belief has stayed with Hang in her relationships and has guided her throughout her journey in education. Now in her forties, with more than twenty years in the field, Hang has had many opportunities to observe the relationships between grandparents, parents, and children from different perspectives. She has also often experienced and witnessed how difficult knots can begin to loosen when there is a space where each person can speak up, listen, and feel heard.

Hang is the founder of Kỷ Luật Yêu Thương, where she and her team work alongside the adults around children – school leaders, teachers, and parents – to build relationships that hold both love and connection, as well as clarity and respect. For more than eight years, Points of You has also been an important part of her journey, helping her expand the way she sees, listens, and stays present with others in conversation.

Hang believes that every person has a voice, a story, and a perspective of their own. And often, what begins to shift a relationship is not finding the right answer or solving the problem completely, but having a conversation that is honest and deep enough for us to see one another a little more clearly.

As one of the callers for Art of Hosting Vietnam this year, Hang also wants to carry this question with her in her own journey: “What futures are possible when our families are in deep and meaningful conversations?”

I am not a family person. Born into a diplomat’s family, the first 25 years of my life revolved around my grandparents, parents, and myself constantly studying or working abroad. I learned to take care of myself and was always trusted to be independent and resourceful. Amidst the whispers of “privileged, rich kid”, few people listened enough to know that I once dreamed of a family gathered around the dinner table, with words of warmth and care.

Someone once commented that I was always searching for meaning and a place to belong, and I kinda agree. I describe myself as a horizontal person : I dabble, explore, learn and know a little about a great many things. Yet rarely too deep or too far with anything. As a result, even though I’ve been involved with the Art of Hosting & Harvesting community in Vietnam since its early days, I sometimes feel like an outsider. Because everyone else has grown, developed, moved forward and succeeded, or at least doing something more significant.

During that time I’m still freewheeling in the role of a supporter, an observer, and a listener. I rely heavily on intuition and pay a lot of attention to details to do that. And although I am an emotional person, I have a very practical approach towards life : I always look at things in multiple ways, not black or white, but somewhere in the spectrum.

I came to this training with a curiosity : how can a family full of kind, loving people sit down and listen to each other, helping each other feel cared for and connected in the most authentic way?

I’m Le Huong Giang, a Master’s graduate in Clinical Psychology and the founder of PsyKIND, a professional psychological counseling and therapy practice offering both in-person and online services.

With the mission of “Helping people live the lives they truly want,” I have spent over 10 years designing mental health and well-being programs for communities, including groups with specific needs.

Giang and PsyKIND aspire to work alongside our partners to bring an inclusive, co-creative approach into practice, creating spaces where each and every one of us can feel seen, valued, and loved.

I grew up in a multigenerational household, with my grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives all living nearby. I was nurtured by an abundance of love and care, along with the little ways my grandparents would “secretly spoil” me. I saw how my parents cared for their elders with respect, how my aunts and uncles looked after one another, and especially how they cared for my siblings and me.

Because we lived with my grandparents, many gatherings of our extended family took place at our home. And our home was not just a place where everyone returned to; it was also a space for conversations. There were joyful stories, things that were difficult to say, moments of connection, and times when relationships became strained, followed by attempts to reconnect. Growing up, I witnessed something quite extraordinary: how people could live together and find their way through differences, hurt, and even moments when they struggled to understand one another.

That warmth and trust have stayed with me to this day. Over time, I have come to realize how fortunate I was to inherit a kind of living legacy from my family — not just love and care, but also a way of living together. Whenever things get difficult, my instinct is often to ask: How can we sit down and talk with one another, rather than walk away?
This has truly sustained me through many of life’s uncertainties and helped me build healthier relationships. Perhaps that is also why, in my work, I have always hoped to help create spaces where people can come together, listen to one another, understand one another, and discover new ways of living and working together.

I hope to continue nurturing this culture not only within my own family, but also in the families, communities, and organizations I have the opportunity to accompany on their journeys.

Perhaps this is why the question – “What futures are possible when our families are in deep and meaningful conversations?” – resonates with me on such a personal level.
And this time, I want to explore this question together with others, with curiosity about the futures we might open up together.

I’m Linh Phan (Sunny), and I feel fortunate to have spent many years accompanying others on their journeys in education.

It has been a journey filled with beautiful ideals. What makes me joyful is that even during challenging times, or facing with realities that fall short of those ideals, I can still feel the sense of grounding, trust, and support that this journey brings.

As a mother, I also tend to look ahead and wonder: In the future, will my children spend more time talking to humans or to robots? In a world that is changing so rapidly, I choose to nurture the deeply human qualities within each of us, for myself, for my children, and for the community education projects I have the opportunity to be part of.

I’m Le Hoang Linh, a financial advisor working with individuals, families, and businesses. Across my different roles in personal finance and investment, what I enjoy most is helping nurture a culture of dialogue and deep, open communication around money within families. I’ve always believed that the heart of financial education lies in our ability to talk with one another.

Just imagine what futures might be possible when a family is in deep and meaningful conversations, especially about topics that have traditionally been difficult to talk about, like finances and investment, where money might talks louder.

If I had to choose one area to focus on and explore more deeply, I would choose building a culture of dialogue about money within Vietnamese families. I believe this is the root of a strong foundation, a layer of protection, and a springboard for each generation to inherit and carry forward, not only financial wealth, but also wisdom, values, and character.