JOANN PHAM
DEVELOPER
BOLSA ROW
DAVID NGUYỄN
DEVELOPER
BOLSA ROW
WHY: Joann Pham is the CEO and managing partner of IP Westminster, family firm that owns the Bolsa Row project, and David Nguyễn is the CFO and managing partner.
IN THE NEWS: Developing $80M Bolsa Row on six acres in Westminster. Among local Vietnamese American entrepreneurs recognized by the Business Journal in July in commemoration of 50 years since the fall of Saigon under the title: “Vietnam’s Loss, Orange County’s Gain.”
NOTABLE: Bolsa Row clock tower pays homage to the American success story of Joann Pham, who fled South Vietnam after the communists took it over. Pham arrived in the U.S. in the 1970s. Nguyễn was born in the U.S. to Vietnamese refugees. His parents, who were lawyers, fled South Vietnam by boat, residing in a Malaysian refugee camp before scraping up enough money for plane tickets to America. Nguyễn is married to his high school sweetheart, Jamie Pham, daughter of Joann and Bac Pham; the couple have three children. Nguyễn previously worked at Goldman Sachs and the Angeleno Group private equity firm in Los Angeles before deciding to join the family firm.
QUOTABLE: “The architecture of Bolsa Row was meant to evoke a nostalgia for pre-war Saigon, the one my family and I left behind 50 years ago. So, I’m hoping this development serves as a bridge to newer generations of Vietnamese Americans who call Orange County their home.” — Joann Pham
“Joann and Bac’s story is the quintessential American kind of success story. I think that probably one misconception that people may have about this project is that a lot of this money is foreign money. No, it’s not. Joann and Bac came here with nothing to their name, and they built it. They built it from scratch.” — David Nguyễn
