From the role of Thanh Truc in “Candles in the Night” to the chief executive’s seat at MTH Corporation, Mai Thu Huyen’s more than thirty years in the arts is the story of an artist who has never stopped widening the scope of her own role. In early 2026, she officially launched MTH Cinema and Technology Group Joint Stock Company, marking the latest turn in a career that spans acting, directing, producing, business and the building of an entrepreneurial community.
From the Truc of the small screen to the architect of an ecosystem
At fifteen, after taking first prize in Hanoi’s “Beauty at Fifteen” contest, Mai Thu Huyen first stepped into the world of film. By 2002, audiences across the country knew her through the role of Thanh Trúc in the hugely popular television series “Candles in the Night” – a role that lodged her name in the memory of an entire generation of Vietnamese television viewers for years to come.
But for Mai Thu Huyen, a successful role has never been a place to stop. It was only a point of departure.
A graduate of the Institute for International Relations, she entered the media industry while still very young, taking up the post of General Director of FPT Media Entertainment and Communications Company, a management position rarely entrusted to an artist then at the height of an acting career. In 2011, she built Tincom Media on her own, operating across three areas: film production, television production and event organisation.
From that point on, Mai Thu Huyen’s journey was no longer that of an actress alone, but that of a woman continually stepping into new roles: director, producer, entrepreneur, educator and community builder.
A storyteller behind the lens, a pathfinder through her projects
As executive producer of feature films such as Lac Gioi (The Lost Realm) and Giac Mơ My (American Dream), Mai Thu Huyen gradually secured her place in Vietnam’s film industry. The major turning point came when she took the director’s chair for the first time with the period film Kieu, inspired by the masterpiece of the great poet Nguyen Du. The film won a number of awards, including Best Music at the Golden Kite Awards 2021 and the B Prize for Best Feature Film from the Ho Chi Minh City Cinema Association; it was submitted for consideration at the 79th Golden Globe Awards and selected as a spotlight film at the Newport Beach Film Festival in the United States.
Then came Đaa hoa mong manh (A Fragile Flower), a film shot entirely on location in the United States, bringing together a cast drawn from both Vietnam and the diaspora. To date it has collected twenty international awards across a range of categories at festivals in the United States, France, Germany, India, Belarus, Macao and Cambodia.
For Mai Thu Huyen, filmmaking has never been simply a matter of telling a story. It is her way of carrying the image, the culture and the inner life of the Vietnamese woman out into the world, a red thread running through very nearly every project she has undertaken.
Building a network for women
“No one understands women better than women themselves.” It is a line Mai Thu Huyen returns to often when explaining why she committed herself to community work.
Not long after joining the WLIN Global international network of women leaders, she had founded three intercontinental clubs known collectively as WLIN InterContinental, bringing together Vietnamese businesswomen across three continents: WLIN Passion USA+ (the Americas), WLIN Stars Asia+ (Asia) and WLIN Pioneer EU+ (Europe). That achievement led to her appointment as Vice President of WLIN Global, responsible for developing the WLIN Partner network among Vietnamese women worldwide.
She is, at the same time, Founding Chairwoman of M2C, the Pioneering Creators Network, a community that gathers entrepreneurs, artists, KOLs and KOCs, content creators, filmmakers and AI specialists from both within Vietnam and abroad, with the aim of connecting resources, co-creating, widening the scope for collaboration and carrying Vietnamese values out to the world.
Her record as a community builder has since been extended by several new milestones: through 2026 she was elected in succession to the executive boards of a series of large and respected organisations, serving as Vice President of the Mai Family Entrepreneurs Council of Vietnam, Vice President and Secretary General of the Mai Family Entrepreneurs Council of Hanoi, a member of the Executive Board of the Vietnam Cinema Association, and a member of the Executive Board of the Hanoi Young Business Association (HanoiBA).
In every one of these roles, one question seems always to be present in Mai Thu Huyen’s thinking: how can the opportunity she has been given be prevented from stopping with her, and instead be spread outward as opportunity for many others?
MTH Corporation and the M2C community: thirty years in the profession, a new mission
On 3 January 2026, in Hanoi, Mai Thu Huyen marked thirty years in the arts with a decision that amounted to a turning point: the launch of MTH Academy, the M.T.H Academy of Cinema and Technology where she serves as Founder and Chief Executive Officer.
The event drew more than two hundred guests: artists, film industry specialists, representatives of professional associations, entrepreneurs and content creators. As part of the opening ceremony, MTH Academy signed strategic cooperation agreements with a number of respected training institutions in Vietnam and abroad, among them the Hanoi Academy of Theatre and Cinema, the Ho Chi Minh City University of Theatre and Cinema and the online learning platform FUNiX, opening the way for the standardisation and expansion of AI filmmaking programmes.
MTH Academy positions itself as the first academy in Vietnam to apply artificial intelligence across both the training process and the production of cinematic content, with the ambition of drawing Vietnamese cinema more deeply into the global creative map. Accompanying her on the project is the director Khai Anh, who serves as Co-Founder and Artistic Director.
After three decades in front of the camera and behind the director’s monitor, Mai Thu Huyen has chosen to step into another role: the one who lays the foundations so that Vietnam’s young filmmakers can acquire an international outlook, hands-on skills and command of the technology, the very things she had to accumulate for herself, project by project, failure by failure, and each time she got back on her feet.
Barely six months into its operation, Mai Thu Huyen moved decisively again, expanding the ecosystem from MTH Academy into MTH Corporation, oriented towards a model that links training, production, technology and talent development. She also founded M2C, the Pioneering Creators Network, gathering entrepreneurs, artists, KOLs and KOCs, creators, filmmakers and AI specialists at home and abroad into a community built on connection, co-creation and wider opportunities for collaboration in a new era.
M Concept and an ecosystem still widening
Alongside MTH Corporation, which operates in cinema and training, Mai Thu Huyen is also Founder of M Concept Ecosystem Company Limited, developing models that bring together cuisine, culture, the arts and creative experience. With M Concept, she hopes not only to build a new brand but also to convey a message of companionship, of handing over opportunity and of inspiring the generation that follows.
Seen as a whole, a single philosophy runs through the way Mai Thu Huyen chooses what to pursue: never to stand still behind one title, never to frame herself within a single field, but to keep widening the borders of her work, so long as each new step creates value for a community larger than herself.
Value multiplied through every role
Set out as a list, acting, directing, producing, training, community building, the construction of a business ecosystem what Mai Thu Huyen does might look like dispersal. Looked at more closely, it follows a very consistent logic.
As an actress, she brings audiences stories that touch the heart.
As a director and producer, she creates the stage on which those same stories can be told more completely.
As the founder of MTH Academy, she hands the next generation the tools to tell stories of their own.
In her roles within WLIN, M2C and the Mai Family Entrepreneurs Council, among others, she builds the networks that ensure no one has to walk alone.
And as an entrepreneur with Tincom Media, MTH Corporation, M Concept and her brand partnership projects, she demonstrates that artistic sensibility and a cool head for business are not in conflict at all, but can support one another to create value that lasts.
That is what separates a person with a successful career from a person pursuing a value that runs through everything: the first stops upon obtaining what they wanted; the second treats every achievement as no more than a launching pad for a larger opportunity to be given to someone else.
Thirty years ago, a young girl stepped in front of a camera for the first time, unable to imagine that one day she would stand on stage at the launch of a film academy bearing her own name, or be elected to the leadership of a council of entrepreneurs.
Thirty years on, that journey has closed a circle not in order to stop, but to open a new and wider one, in which the value of a single individual is multiplied into opportunity for many others.
It is what Mai Thu Huyen continues, tirelessly, to pursue.
