Southeast Asian superapp Grab has announced the appointment of Alejandro Osorio as managing director of Grab Vietnam to oversee its vision, business strategy, and operations across all businesses in the country.
Osorio will also be responsible for driving the Grab for Good mission in Vietnam, which aims to create more positive social and environmental impacts for the country, Grab said in a statement.
Osorio has spent five years at Grab, most recently as managing director of Grab Thailand. As part of the transition, Grab Thailand said earlier this month that it had promoted executive director Worachat Luxkanalode to be the new country head to succeed Osorio.
Osorio had also held the role of director for regional strategy planning and operations at Grab.
In March, Nguyen Thai Hai Van, who had been appointed as country managing director for Vietnam at Grab in January 2020, stepped down to pursue “a new career opportunity”, Grab said.
She had replaced Jerry Lim, who then moved to Singapore to take on the role as regional head of customer experience. It was understood that Lim came back to Vietnam to fill the space after Van left.
Grab entered Vietnam in 2014 and has since developed its superapp ecosystem in the country, with services ranging from food, grocery, parcel deliveries, mobility, and payments.
It is still among the most popular multi-service platforms in this market. However, competition has also heated up with the growth of Shopee, Gojek, Be Group, Baemin, and Loship.
In September, Vietnam’s homegrown app Be ramped up its war chest with a loan facility of $60 million from Deutsche Bank, which can be upsized up to $100 million. DealStreetAsia also reported that Be was looking to raise at least $100 million in an equity funding round to ready itself in the expansion game.